In the second quarter of 2026, ending in June, Intel posted numbers above expectations: sales grew by 25.4 percent to $16.1 billion, while estimates stood at $14.4 billion, and the adjusted gross margin was 41.8 percent, compared to the estimated 38.8 percent. But it was the forecasts for the following three months – that is, the period from July to September – that truly excited the market, pushing the shares of the American microchip company up by more than 5 percent. Intel appears to have now entered a recovery phase after a long period of internal crisis that had prevented it from riding the wave of artificial intelligence, which has proven extremely profitable for other chipmakers like Nvidia and AMD.
FORECASTS FOR THE THIRD QUARTER OF 2026
Intel, in fact, expects to report revenue of $15.8-16.8 billion in the third quarter of the year, against an average analyst estimate of $15.1 billion. Adjusted earnings are expected to be 38 cents per share, significantly higher than the 27 cents predicted by observers.
INTEL’S RECOVERY
Intel’s stock peaked on July 22 and has since lost more than 25 percent, although this occurred amid a selloff that affected many other chip manufacturers: the market cyclically questions whether the so-called “artificial intelligence boom” – which depends on microchips, of course – rests on solid foundations or whether it is rather a speculative bubble about to burst. On a yearly basis, however, Intel’s shares have risen by over 170 percent.
The credit for this rise also goes to the new CEO Lip-Bu Tan, in office since March 2025, who after a phase of cost-cutting, involving significant layoffs and cancellations of plans, has managed to close important contracts: with Tesla and with Google, for example, and apparently also with Apple.
When evaluating Intel’s recovery, observers are focusing on two specific business segments: data centers (i.e., the infrastructures powering artificial intelligence systems) and foundry (i.e., microchip manufacturing). On this matter, Lip-Bu Tan explained that the second quarter results have pushed Intel to commit “fully” to large-scale production of microchips based on 14A manufacturing technology in 2028. This is a significant announcement because until a few months ago the company maintained that it would have to abandon the development of 14A if it failed to find a major customer.
HOW INTEL’S INDIVIDUAL UNITS ARE PERFORMING
In the second quarter of 2026, Intel’s data center division revenues amounted to $6.2 billion: estimates were $5.3 billion.
The segment dedicated to computers (laptop and desktop) also performed well with sales of $8.8 billion, compared to estimates of $7.8 billion: lower sales volumes were offset by price increases, thanks to a greater focus on high-end devices.
Finally, sales of the foundry unit were $5.7 billion, again higher than the $5.5 billion predicted by analysts.
WHO SUPPORTS INTEL
In recent months, Intel has received investments from the U.S. government (for $9 billion and a 10 percent stake in the capital), the Japanese holding SoftBank (for $2 billion), and the aforementioned Nvidia (for $5 billion), the company clearly dominant in the artificial intelligence processor market.
