NEW YORK, Feb 27, 2026, 07:22 ET — Premarket
Intel shares go into Friday following a 3.0% slide in the previous session, falling to $45.46 and breaking a short two-day winning streak. Volume stayed on the lighter side. The stock continues to trade far under its 52-week high.
Right now, investors want to know if Intel can turn its new AI-inference partnership into something they can actually plug into their models. Intel and SambaNova are teaming up for several years, with plans centered on using Intel’s Xeon chips for AI inference—putting trained models to work in real-world settings. Intel Capital is also backing SambaNova’s Series E funding round.
Chip stocks are jittery. On Thursday, U.S. indexes went in different directions—Nvidia slumped hard, souring the mood for other AI names despite posting solid earnings.
SambaNova secured $350 million in fresh funding this week, the round led by Vista Equity Partners and Cambium Capital. The company also inked a multi-year deal with Intel. According to Reuters, SoftBank Corp will roll out SambaNova’s SN50 chip in its AI data centers in Japan, marking the chip’s first deployment.
Rivalry in the chip business is heating up. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, speaking with analysts, said, “We love CPUs as well as GPUs,” underscoring the processor’s renewed importance as the AI field pivots from training models to rolling out “agents,” Reuters reported. Analysts Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies and Dave Altavilla from HotTech Vision and Analysis flagged a trend toward more “agentic” workloads landing on CPUs, and noted the industry is moving away from the CPU as the default foundation. Huang promised fresh details on Nvidia’s CPUs at the company’s annual developer event next month. Reuters
There’s movement inside Intel as well. Tom’s Hardware says Kevin O’Buckley, who led Intel Foundry Services as senior vice president and general manager, is exiting for a role at Qualcomm. Naga Chandrasekaran, another executive from Intel Foundry, will now run the division.
Traders are left weighing if the SambaNova tie-up signals just a minor step or if it genuinely cuts into inference budgets that have mostly landed in Nvidia’s camp. Intel’s future hinges on execution, not the buzz.
The worry: chatter about a “CPU comeback” could remain just that—talk—while demand keeps zeroing in on accelerated chips and locked-down software ecosystems. There’s another issue too. AI-driven swings have been brutal, and Intel isn’t immune; even on company-specific headlines, shares can tumble.
Investors are bracing for U.S. inflation numbers out later Friday, set to land before the market opens. Tech and chip stocks have already shown nerves over the Fed’s next move on rates.
