Shares of chipmaker Intel(NASDAQ: INTC) have been on a remarkable run. As of this writing, the stock has soared nearly 500% over the past year, with much of that gain piling up in the last several weeks alone. After the company posted its first-quarter results in late April and was reported to have reached a preliminary chip-manufacturing agreement with Apple earlier this month, the stock notched a fresh 52-week high near $130.
This kind of move naturally invites a question: Could Intel be the next Nvidia(NASDAQ: NVDA)?
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The framing makes some sense. Both are AI-tied semiconductor giants, both have been pulled into the same generative AI infrastructure narrative, and both have CEOs talking up multiyear platform shifts. But the underlying businesses look very different — and so do the expectations baked into their stocks today.
Image source: Getty Images.
The bull case shouldn’t be ignored
To be fair, there’s more to Intel’s rally than just hype.
The chipmaker’s first-quarter 2026 revenue rose 7% year over year to $13.6 billion, beating the midpoint of management’s own guidance by more than $1 billion and marking the sixth consecutive quarter Intel has exceeded its own forecast. Further, non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings per share landed at $0.29, easily clearing management’s forecast for breakeven. And the company’s adjusted gross margin expanded to 41% from 39.2% in the year-ago quarter.
The data center and AI segment, which is now the focal point of the bull case, did even better. Segment revenue rose 22% year over year to $5.1 billion in Q1, accelerating sharply from 9% growth in the fourth quarter of 2025.
And Intel chief financial officer David Zinsner seemed to indicate that Intel is at the center of a pivotal moment in the AI boom.
These results reflect “the growing and essential role of the CPU in the AI era and unprecedented demand for silicon,” Zinsner explained in the company’s first-quarter earnings release. And this makes sense. As AI workloads shift from training-heavy use cases toward inference and agentic systems, the typical ratio of GPUs to CPUs in a deployment may compress, giving Intel’s Xeon line a bigger seat at the table.
The strategic signals are also lining up.
Last year, Nvidia agreed to invest $5 billion in Intel and to use the company for custom data center CPUs. Intel also joined Elon Musk’s Terafab project as a strategic partner alongside SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla. And earlier this month, the company was reported to have reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to manufacture some of Apple’s chips — a notable vote of confidence given Apple’s long-running reliance on Taiwan Semiconductor for its most advanced silicon. The U.S. government, meanwhile, holds roughly a 10% stake in Intel.
But Intel is not Nvidia
Still, comparing the two is a stretch.
Nvidia’s most recent quarter saw revenue jump 73% year over year to $68.1 billion, with data center revenue alone hitting $62.3 billion — nearly five times Intel’s total quarterly revenue. Nvidia’s gross margin came in at 75%, roughly double Intel’s. And for fiscal 2026, Nvidia’s revenue grew 65% to $215.9 billion. Intel’s full-year 2025 revenue, by contrast, was about $52.9 billion — essentially flat year over year.
And the differences in the two companies’ profitability stories are even wider. Intel’s foundry segment posted a $2.4 billion operating loss in the first quarter, and adjusted free cash flow during the period was about negative $2 billion. Intel is still spending heavily to build out capacity, while Nvidia is generating mouth-watering sums of profits — $43 billion in net income in its most recent quarter alone, in fact.
Then there’s the price tag. Intel’s stock trades at around $125 a share — about six times where it sat a year ago, with a market capitalization north of $600 billion. Further, the stock commands a high forward price-to-earnings ratio of 140. Sure, it’s always possible that Intel grows into this valuation over time, but it will need not just exceptional growth this year, but for the next decade as well, in order to live up to a valuation like this.
Meanwhile, Nvidia is growing far faster yet has a forward price-to-earnings ratio of just 24 — a significantly cheaper valuation.
So no, Intel probably isn’t the next Nvidia. The growth rates, gross margins, and absolute profitability simply aren’t comparable. But that doesn’t mean Intel can’t be a winner from here. The Apple, Nvidia, and Terafab deals all suggest the foundry strategy is gaining real traction, and the data center and AI business is finally showing some momentum. The problem is that the stock has already priced a lot of that in.
I’ll personally stay on the sidelines here, waiting for either a meaningful pullback or several more quarters of exceptional execution before paying this price.
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Daniel Sparks and his clients have positions in Apple. Daniel has clients with positions in Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, Intel, Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
