The chipmaker posted $13.6 billion in Q1 revenue, well above analyst expectations of $12.36 billion, and guided Q2 above forecasts
Intel $INTC reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of $13.6 billion, up 7% from a year earlier and well above Wall Street expectations, driven by strong demand in its data center and foundry businesses.
Shares jumped more than 16% in extended trading on Thursday.
The quarter's adjusted earnings per share of $0.29 came in well ahead of the $0.01 analysts had expected, according to Yahoo Finance, which had also pegged consensus revenue expectations at $12.36 billion.
On a GAAP basis, the company reported a loss of $0.73 per share, reflecting $4.07 billion in restructuring and other charges, primarily tied to a goodwill impairment at its Mobileye reporting unit.
The Data Center and AI unit brought in $5.1 billion, locking in a 22% year-over-year gain that outpaced the $4.41 billion analysts had anticipated. Intel $INTC Foundry revenue rose 16% to $5.4 billion. The Client Computing Group, which covers PC chips, posted $7.7 billion in revenue for a 1% jump.
"The next wave of AI will bring intelligence closer to the end user, moving from foundational models to inference to agentic," Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in a statement. "This shift is significantly increasing the need for Intel's CPUs and wafer and advanced packaging offerings."
CFO David Zinsner cited "unprecedented demand for silicon," adding that supply additions were planned for each successive quarter. Even so, Intel noted that customer demand currently exceeds what the company is able to ship.
Intel's non-GAAP gross margin came in at 41.0%, up from 39.2% in the same quarter last year. The company generated $1.1 billion in cash from operations.
For the second quarter, Intel projected revenue of $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion. Analysts had forecast $13.03 billion for the period, according to Yahoo Finance. The company also guided for GAAP EPS of $0.08 and non-GAAP EPS of $0.20 in Q2.
Among the quarter's business highlights, Intel said its Xeon 6 processor was selected as the host CPU for NVIDIA's DGX Rubin NVL8 systems. The company also announced a multiyear collaboration with Google $GOOGL for continued deployment of Xeon processors and co-development of custom AI infrastructure chips.
Intel joined the Terafab project alongside SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla $TSLA, and repurchased the 49% minority equity interest in a joint investment entity related to its Fab 34 facility in Ireland, the company said.
The results marked a sixth consecutive quarter in which Intel's revenue exceeded its own expectations, Tan said. Intel's total headcount stood at about 83,200 employees as of the end of the quarter, down from about 102,600 a year earlier.
