Intel Corp (NASDAQ:INTC) is up 4.6% at $111.99 in premarket trading, after Bank of America handed out a double upgrade to the semiconductor giant to "buy" from "underperform" and lifted its price target to $135 from $96.
Intel Corporation has surged nearly 400% in 12 months, driven by a compelling turnaround and foundry validation. INTC now trades at a forward price-to-cash-flow of ~38.6x, reflecting high expectations for future earnings, especially from its foundry business. The preliminary Apple partnership could add $700M–$1B in annual foundry revenue starting 2028, but execution risk remains high.
Intel shares INTC surged 4% in premarket trading after Bank of America upgraded the semiconductor company to Buy from Underperform and raised its price target to $135 from $96. The brokerage cited growing demand for central processing units (CPUs) and Intel's positioning to benefit from the rise of agentic artificial intelligence.
The market is already treating tomorrow's SpaceX IPO as one of the most important public offerings in decades.
The selloff in the tech sector that has heightened investor anxiety over the past week graduated to a new phase on Wednesday: The pullback is over, and it's now officially a correction.
A quiet shift is underway in the global semiconductor landscape. While market-wide macro headwinds punish technology valuations, a foundational realignment of the AI supply chain is taking place.
Headlines this week are obsessed with Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC | INTC Price Prediction), which has ridden the agentic AI narrative and a parade of marquee partners to a 426.95% one-year run that has the chat rooms convinced the turnaround is in the bag.
One of the top semiconductor stocks of 2026, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), has received multiple new and almost universally moderately bearish 12-month price target updates since June 1.
Intel's DCAI segment grew 22% year-over-year to $5.1 billion in Q1, while operating margins reached 30.5%. AI infrastructure is becoming increasingly CPU-intensive, with GPU-to-CPU ratios compressing from 8:1 toward 1:1 workloads. Xeon 6 secured major AI design wins, including Nvidia DGX Rubin systems and long-term hyperscaler agreements.
In 1Q26, Intel's revenue grew by 7.18% due to strength in the company's DCAI and foundry segments; client computing group remains flat, up only 1% y/y. Intel's DCAI segment will remain as the company's main growth engine due to agentic artificial intelligence and higher demand for more inferences, resulting in the need for more CPUs. Although Intel's foundry segment has developed substantially, the segment is still bleeding money and does not contribute meaningfully to the topline; most of the revenue are internal.
The big players have shown up to the quantum computing race, and the results could be disastrous for smaller names. IBM Corp. NYSE: IBM notched two big wins in recent weeks, securing $1 billion in foundry funding from the federal government and leaning into quantum R&D with $10 billion in planned internal investments.
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) has become one of the market's strongest comeback stories in 2026, with investors increasingly betting the chipmaker can establish itself as a major player in the artificial intelligence infrastructure boom.