Intel (INTC) on Solana

Intel's financials reflect the cost of its turnaround bet: the company posted an $11.033 billion GAAP net loss in its most recent quarter despite 25% revenue growth, weighed down by a $2.1 billion quarterly loss in its foundry division. Gross margins sit at 40.4%, far behind Micron's 84.6%, and options traders have assigned Intel a conviction score of just 12–32 post-earnings versus 78–88 for Micron — a gap analysts attribute to institutional skepticism about Intel's near-term trajectory.

The core issue, according to the analysis, is timing. Micron is capitalizing on immediate AI-driven demand through multi-year customer contracts and strong HBM memory pricing power. Intel's recovery, by contrast, hinges on longer-dated execution risks: ramping external foundry revenue, validating its Intel 18A-P process technology, and absorbing ongoing CHIPS Act-related costs. Until those bets pay off, analysts see Micron as decisively better positioned to generate returns in the current AI infrastructure cycle.

Intel Foundry has signed cybersecurity firm Fortinet as a manufacturing customer for the company's next-generation Security Processor 6, which underpins Fortinet's FortiGate firewall line. Under the arrangement, Fortinet handles front-end chip design while Intel Foundry takes responsibility for back-end design, advanced packaging, and production on its Intel 4 process node. The deal marks the first publicly named outside customer for Intel Foundry under CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who took the helm in early 2025, and gives Fortinet a path to diversify away from TSMC, which currently commands roughly 72% of the global foundry market.

The win arrives as Intel Foundry posted $5.8 billion in Q2 2026 revenue — 31% year-over-year growth that exceeded the company's own 25% target — out of Intel's total $16.1 billion for the quarter. Analysts note that landing a cybersecurity ASIC customer opens a new vertical for the foundry unit and could encourage other security chip designers to explore Intel as an alternative to TSMC. Whether Fortinet proves to be a template or an outlier will depend on Intel Foundry's ability to hit yield and delivery targets on a production program that is still in its early stages.

Intel is participating in a joint venture called "Terafab," partnering with SpaceX and Tesla to develop a semiconductor fabrication facility in Texas. Under the arrangement, Intel acts as the foundry partner for custom silicon targeting next-generation robotics and autonomous vehicle platforms, including Tesla's Optimus robots and Cybercabs and SpaceX automation initiatives. The current framework is described as non-binding, with no investment figures or specific timeline committed publicly.

The deal gives Intel a direct position inside the chip supply chain for Tesla and SpaceX rather than serving as an outside supplier — a meaningful distinction as both companies scale AI-driven hardware programs. The partnership fits Intel's broader push to grow its foundry services business and position itself as a manufacturing platform for high-profile AI and automation customers. The signal to watch is whether the parties convert the arrangement into binding wafer volume or long-term supply agreements within the next 12–18 months.

SoftBank Group's first-quarter results, covering the period ended June 2026, were headlined by a 1.33 trillion yen ($8.2 billion) investment gain on its Intel stake — the dominant contributor to the company's 1.86 trillion yen total investment gains for the quarter. SoftBank had invested approximately $2 billion in Intel last year as the chipmaker underwent restructuring under CEO Lip-Bu Tan, a long-time ally of SoftBank's Masayoshi Son. Intel shares surged roughly 216% during the quarter, producing an outsized return on that initial position and lifting SoftBank's overall Q1 net income to 347.3 billion yen (about $2.2 billion), down 18% year-on-year but ahead of analyst expectations.

By contrast, SoftBank reported no meaningful gain or loss from its substantial OpenAI position this quarter, as OpenAI's valuation held largely steady and a potential IPO has reportedly been pushed back to next year. SoftBank separately secured a $10 billion loan using its OpenAI stake as collateral, highlighting how both its AI and semiconductor holdings now anchor its financial strategy — with Intel's share-price rally proving the bigger near-term earnings driver.

Intel's Q2 earnings call — which saw revenue of $16.13 billion beat estimates by nearly 12% and adjusted EPS of $0.42 nearly double the consensus — generated pointed analyst questions on three persistent concerns: capital allocation for the foundry buildout, the pace of server market-share recovery against AMD and ARM, and how long supply constraints will weigh on revenue. CFO David Zinsner told Melius Research that CapEx remains concentrated in front-end fabrication, reflecting confidence in both internal chip demand and signals from external foundry customers. On server share, CEO Lip-Bu Tan acknowledged competitive gaps while pointing to multithreading roadmap improvements and ARM collaboration as recovery levers, though Morgan Stanley's Joseph Moore pressed for concrete timelines. UBS's Timothy Arcuri extracted a candid admission that packaging and substrate bottlenecks will keep supply tight through year-end despite Q4 capacity additions.

The call also surfaced two forward-looking threads. Bernstein's Stacy Rasgon drilled into the client-segment beat, where Zinsner credited pricing and mix rather than underlying demand strength, guiding for flat client revenue next quarter with upside only if edge-AI deployments accelerate. Wells Fargo's Aaron Rakers pushed on the ASIC and memory business, where Tan described a growing pipeline of custom silicon opportunities and pointed to recent leadership hires and memory-vendor partnerships as evidence of a more deliberate push into datacenter adjacencies. Taken together, the analyst Q&A underscored that the bull case for Intel rests almost entirely on foundry customer wins and server share recapture — two outcomes that management expressed confidence in but declined to quantify with specific targets or timelines.

CNBC's Jim Cramer has articulated a bullish investment case for Intel that goes beyond the company's traditional chip-selling business, arguing that its combination of in-house chip production, packaging operations, and external foundry services makes it a uniquely positioned manufacturer. "Intel's got packaging, it's got foundry. It is so much that's better," Cramer said, crediting CEO Lip-Bu Tan as the right leader to execute the multi-segment strategy. Intel's stock has climbed roughly 302% over the past year, though it pulled back sharply from $109 to $93 in a single trading session — a drawdown Cramer appears to view as a buying opportunity rather than a structural concern.

The financial picture heading into the debate is mixed. Intel reported 25.4% year-over-year revenue growth in Q2 2026 and raised its capital expenditure guidance to over $20 billion for 2026, signaling continued investment in domestic manufacturing capacity. However, the forward P/E ratio stood at approximately 158x as of mid-2026 and total debt exceeded $50 billion, raising valuation and leverage questions. Institutional interest has nonetheless grown: 112 of 1,022 hedge funds tracked held Intel positions in Q1 2026, up from 96 the prior quarter, with D.E. Shaw increasing its stake by 183% to $748 million. The foundry business remains the long-term linchpin, dependent on landing major contracts from customers such as Apple and NVIDIA.

Intel announced a memorandum of understanding with Lens Technology on July 26, 2026, focused on through-glass via (TGV) advanced packaging — a next-generation chip interconnection approach that embeds conductive pathways through glass substrates to improve signal density and thermal performance. The early-stage agreement targets high-precision manufacturing work in support of Intel Foundry's advanced packaging offerings, with no finalized commercial terms disclosed at this stage.

The targeted applications span AI PCs, data center chips, embodied AI robotics, and edge computing platforms, placing TGV squarely within Intel's broader strategy to compete as a foundry partner for AI-driven hardware. The deal follows Intel's recent announcement of Fortinet as its first named external foundry customer under CEO Lip-Bu Tan, continuing a pattern of partnership announcements aimed at validating the foundry business as a credible alternative to TSMC for next-generation semiconductor packaging.

Goldman Sachs raised its Intel estimates by an average of 49% following the company's Q2 2026 results, yet maintained a Neutral rating and a $150 price target. Intel reported $16.1 billion in revenue — up 25% year-over-year and its strongest growth in over 15 years — with non-GAAP EPS of $0.42 nearly doubling the $0.22 Street consensus. Gross margin of 41.8% also exceeded expectations, and Q3 guidance came in at a $16.3 billion midpoint above analyst estimates. The Data Center & AI segment was a standout, posting $6.3 billion in revenue, up 59% year-over-year.

Goldman's candid hesitation centered on relative positioning rather than Intel's absolute performance. The firm acknowledged Intel's "strong double-digit CAGR" potential through 2028 but noted that "Intel's closest peers — AMD, NVDA and AVGO — offer relatively more revenue visibility and favorable risk/reward." INTC has risen roughly 154% year-to-date, ranking sixth among S&P 500 stocks, and Intel also disclosed a $20 billion-plus capex plan for 2026 alongside a €5 billion European manufacturing commitment, with its 18A process on schedule for risk production.

Intel reported Q2 2026 revenue of $16.1 billion, beating its own guidance midpoint by $1.8 billion and marking what the company called its strongest revenue growth in over 15 years — the seventh consecutive quarter it has surpassed guidance. Non-GAAP EPS came in at $0.42, more than double the $0.20 guided, while non-GAAP gross margin reached 41.8%, 280 basis points above target. The Data Center and AI (DCAI) segment led performance, generating $6.3 billion in revenue — up 24% sequentially and 59% year-over-year — as AI-driven businesses across Intel grew 70% year-over-year. Operating cash flow hit $7 billion, with cash and short-term investments near $30 billion.

Intel's foundry ambitions showed concrete progress: Foundry revenue reached $5.8 billion, up 6% sequentially, with 18A process output exceeding internal volume targets. The company deepened its collaboration with Google Cloud as part of its AI-first strategy pivot. For Q3, Intel guided revenue of $15.8–$16.8 billion with a 42% non-GAAP gross margin, while committing to more than $20 billion in 2026 capital expenditure. Supply constraints across leading-edge logic, substrates, and memory remain the primary bottleneck limiting further growth, and the PC market is expected to track sub-seasonally in the second half due to rising memory prices.