Earnings

Intel’s blockbuster earnings and a major new foundry customer have triggered a 28% single-day surge that lifted the Trump administration’s 10% stake to a $28 billion paper gain, signaling renewed institutional confidence in legacy chipmakers as competition for AI infrastructure spending intensifies. For crypto and blockchain infrastructure investors, the move underscores how traditional semiconductor supply chains remain central to the hardware race underpinning on-chain scaling and mining economics.

• Trump administration’s Intel position grew from $8.9 billion to $36.9 billion, representing a 315% unrealized gain on August 2025 purchase
• Intel posted $13.58 billion in quarterly revenue, beating analyst expectations of $12.42 billion by 9.3%, with earnings per share of $0.29 versus $0.01 forecast
• Tesla and SpaceX selected Intel’s 14A process for Terafab AI chip project, opening a new revenue stream in competitive foundry market

• 315% Unrealized gain on U.S. government stake since initial purchase in August 2025
• $13.58B Intel quarterly revenue, beating Wall Street consensus by approximately 9.3 percent
• 109.2% Semiconductor sector earnings growth forecast for Q1, more than double S&P 500 tech sector

Intel closed Friday at $85.22 per share, up 28% in a single session and marking the stock’s best day since the crash of October 29, 1987. The rally pushed the company’s year-to-date gain to roughly 120%, lifting it above the peak reached during the dot-com bubble in 2000.

Behind the surge lay a rare convergence of fundamental strength and strategic validation: the chipmaker reported first-quarter revenue of $13.58 billion, crushing Wall Street’s consensus of $12.42 billion, while earnings per share delivered $0.29 against a forecast of just $0.01.

That beat, combined with an upbeat second-quarter guidance of $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion versus analyst expectations near $13 billion, shattered the perception that Intel had ceded the artificial intelligence hardware boom entirely to rivals like Nvidia.

Tesla and SpaceX select Intel’s 14A process for Terafab, validating foundry strategy

The most significant catalyst emerged from an outside endorsement that had eluded Intel for years: Tesla and SpaceX announced they would use Intel’s 14A manufacturing process for the Terafab AI chip project.

The designation matters because it provides Intel a concrete, high-profile customer for a future node at a moment when the company’s foundry expansion remains one of Wall Street’s biggest financial wildcards.

Intel has invested billions in building out manufacturing capacity to serve external customers, competing against Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung in a race to win AI chip production work.

That vote of confidence from two Elon Musk-led companies carries outsized weight among institutional investors who monitor supply chain resilience and domestic semiconductor capacity. It signals that Intel’s process roadmap has moved beyond theoretical capability into real demand from customers building mission-critical hardware.

The Data Center and AI segment, which includes revenue from chip sales to cloud providers, posted year-over-year growth in the quarter, a reversal of the narrative that had dogged Intel through much of 2024 and early 2025.

For years, Intel’s foundry ambitions looked like a capital-intensive drag on earnings. The Terafab deal reframes that bet as potentially accretive over the next product cycle.

Philadelphia Semiconductor Index hits record on 109% earnings growth forecast, dwarfing broader tech

Intel’s outperformance ignited a broader rally across legacy chipmakers.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index surged 3.2% to an all-time high on Friday and notched its 18th consecutive day of gains, with a year-to-date return exceeding 47%. The breadth of the move reflects how dependent the semiconductor sector has become on accelerating AI infrastructure spending from hyperscalers such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, all of which are racing to build custom silicon and expand data center capacity.

That concentrated demand has created a valuation gap between semiconductor companies and the broader tech sector that may signal either opportunity or risk. Semiconductor stocks are now forecast to deliver 109.2% earnings growth for the first quarter, based on Refinitiv data, compared to 48.2% for the wider S&P 500 information technology sector.

Nearly all of that outperformance is tied to AI-driven capex cycles and the structural shift toward in-house chip design at major cloud providers.

For institutional investors, the disparity raises questions about sustainability: that earnings growth rate would be difficult to maintain beyond the next two to three quarters without evidence of further capex acceleration or new customer wins beyond the existing hyperscaler base.

The rally also reflects a tactical rotation back toward Intel after years of perceived market share losses to Nvidia in graphics processing and to advanced foundries in process technology.

Nvidia has captured the lion’s share of attention and capital gains during the AI boom, but Intel’s more diversified revenue base, spanning data center, client computing, and now foundry work, may appeal to investors seeking exposure to AI infrastructure without the concentration risk that comes with a single-product-cycle story.

Government stake value climbs to $36.9 billion amid political backdrop for domestic chip resilience

The Trump administration purchased its 10% Intel stake at $20.47 per share in August 2025, deploying roughly $8.9 billion in public capital.

At Friday’s closing price of $85.22, that same position is now worth approximately $36.9 billion, an unrealized gain of roughly $28 billion or 315% on the initial investment.

The scale of that paper profit has already drawn attention from lawmakers and market observers monitoring whether the U.S. government’s stake represents a long-term commitment to domestic semiconductor independence or a tactical position designed for near-term capital gains.

The government’s ownership carries symbolic weight as well as financial consequences. U.S. policymakers have identified semiconductor manufacturing as critical infrastructure, particularly after years of supply chain disruptions linked to Taiwan’s geopolitical exposure.

Intel’s domestic fabs and its new foundry business align with that strategic priority, making the government’s stake partly a hedge against both market risk and national security considerations.

That dual motivation means the Trump administration is unlikely to sell the position opportunistically, even if short-term gains tempt, but it also means that future earnings misses or competitive setbacks could trigger sharp repricing.

Institutional investors should watch for Intel’s second-quarter earnings report and any follow-up announcements regarding the Terafab partnership, as well as the pace at which the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index sustains its 18-day winning streak; sustained outperformance at current valuation premiums would require evidence that AI capex growth has broadened beyond hyperscalers to include enterprise and emerging markets, a shift that remains unconfirmed as of early 2025.