New York, June 11, 2026, 07:03 (EDT)
- Intel shares picked up premarket interest after Bank of America upgraded the name to Buy from Underperform and set a new price target at $135, up from $96.
- The upgrade arrived a day after Intel ended in the red as chip stocks sold off. Investors now have a clearer reason to look at the stock again.
- The risk remains. Intel still needs actual outside customers for its foundry plans to work, not just talk, deals on paper or future promises.
Intel shares pushed higher Thursday after Bank of America upgraded the stock from Underperform to Buy and raised its price target to $135 from $96. The call follows a selloff in tech names on Wednesday. BofA cited higher confidence in Intel’s server CPU unit and its foundry push, which involves making chips for outside firms.
Intel’s shift comes after the chipmaker struggled in the last session. Shares ended Wednesday at $107.04, down 0.82%. Tech stocks had slumped into correction, with chip stocks under pressure. On Thursday morning, Reuters said Nvidia, Intel and Micron rose in premarket trading as some investors bought the dip in tech.
BofA isn’t just jumping on the “AI stocks are hot” bandwagon. The firm lifted its estimate of Intel’s earnings power for 2030 to more than $6 a share. That’s up from a previous range of $3 to $4, per Investing.com. Analysts including Vivek Arya wrote that their older valuation “under-represents many of the company’s CPU and foundry potentials that are further out.” Investing.com
Central processing units, or CPUs, are the main processors powering server tasks. BofA is projecting Intel’s server CPU revenue could reach over $40 billion by 2030. That would represent around 25% of what the bank sees as a $170 billion total market. BofA said part of the growth could come from agentic AI—AI that takes on tasks with less step-by-step input from humans.
The foundry business is the bigger swing here. Alphabet’s Google has ordered over 3 million TPUs from Intel for 2028, Reuters reported earlier this week, citing The Information. TPUs are Google’s AI chips for training and running models. Reuters also said Nvidia is looking at Intel tech for a chip that could combine four graphics chips. Intel wouldn’t comment, and Reuters couldn’t verify the Nvidia talks.
The difference matters. News of a Google order and talk of Nvidia testing are not equal to Intel locking in years of strong foundry sales. But these headlines go back to the same bullish argument: big AI players are shopping for backups to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., with its top chipmaking lines running hot in the AI surge.
Investors got a confirmed update lately. Cadence Design Systems said it’s expanding a multiyear deal with Intel Foundry to help fine-tune Intel’s upcoming 14A process for high-performance computing and mobile chips. “This partnership reflects Intel’s focus on delivering on its technology roadmap and ecosystem on behalf of our customers,” said Naga Chandrasekaran, executive vice president and general manager of Intel Foundry. Business Wire
That’s part of why Intel’s stock swings on foundry news. The company put up stronger product numbers last quarter, but investors are still watching costs tied to the manufacturing shakeup. In Q1, revenue climbed 7% to $13.6 billion. Data Center and AI pulled in $5.1 billion, up 22%. Foundry revenue improved 16% to $5.4 billion. The foundry business still ended the quarter with an operating loss near $2.44 billion.
Intel points to the tension in its own filing. The chipmaker set its second-quarter revenue outlook at $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion, and forecast GAAP EPS of $0.08, with non-GAAP EPS of $0.20. The non-GAAP numbers leave out some items like restructuring charges and stock-based pay. That can give investors a read on the core business, but doesn’t replace standard accounting.
Intel’s stock now looks priced for a turnaround, but there are still a lot of unknowns. BofA flagged risks including tougher competition from Arm and custom chips, softer AI capex, and execution snags in ramping up Intel’s advanced manufacturing. In its SEC filing, Intel pointed to the risk that heavy spending on research and manufacturing might not pay off, and said it could stop or pause Intel 14A if it can’t lock in enough demand.
Thursday’s action isn’t being driven by yesterday’s close. Investors are focused on whether Intel has shifted from just a turnaround case to a real second supplier for AI chip production. The key will be actual customer orders for 14A and other top-end nodes. Until those show up, the rally is based on an Intel pledge that, by their own admission, could still get cut back.
