NEW YORK, March 25, 2026, 07:08 EDT
Intel jumped 3.8% ahead of Wednesday’s open, getting a boost as Arm rolled out its latest AI data-center chip, sparking a rally across the chip sector. Oil prices slipped, and talk out of Washington about a possible month-long Iran war ceasefire added further support for risk appetite in U.S. futures. Reuters
This is notable as the AI landscape tilts toward so-called “agentic AI”—tools that handle tasks on a user’s behalf with little supervision—fueling a fresh wave of CPU demand for servers. Arm, according to Citigroup analysts, has “jumped in with both feet.” Intel is out front, trading at a lofty 71.27 times its projected earnings over the next year, compared to AMD’s 26.64, LSEG data compiled by Reuters shows. Reuters
Intel last traded at $44.06, putting the chipmaker’s market cap around $155.4 billion, according to delayed market data.
Arm expects its AGI CPU—manufactured by TSMC using a 3-nanometer process—to generate about $15 billion in annual revenue within five years. “A very pivotal moment,” Chief Executive Rene Haas said, highlighting Meta as the lead partner and OpenAI as one of the early buyers. Reuters
Intel’s sharper push into server processors brings complications. Back in January, the company admitted it didn’t anticipate the spike in orders for the server CPUs paired with Nvidia’s graphics chips inside AI data centers. Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan conceded, “not able to fully meet the demand in our markets.” Reuters
The bottleneck wasn’t enough to derail the bull thesis. Intel shares jumped 84% in 2025, outpacing the Philadelphia semiconductor index, which climbed 42%. Heavy investments from Nvidia, SoftBank, and the U.S. government helped shore up Intel’s balance sheet. “The near-term dynamic’s set up very well” if demand remains, Gabelli Funds analyst Ryuta Makino said. Reuters
Part of the optimism traces back to Intel’s factories. Earlier this month, CFO David Zinsner noted that Tan now sees Intel’s 18A manufacturing process as “a good node to offer to external customers as well,” thanks to improved progress—a marked change from last year, when the plan was to reserve it mostly for Intel’s own chips. Reuters
But execution risk hasn’t gone anywhere. TD Cowen chalked up the rally to “the dream” rather than anything immediate after Intel’s gloomy January forecast, while Bernstein accused the company of missing the mark on the server cycle. Reuters, for its part, noted that two possible 14A foundry clients were merely kicking the tires, just reviewing technical specs. Meanwhile, higher memory prices are clouding PC demand—still Intel’s core. Reuters
