Intel Q2 2026 revenue up 25 percent fastest growth 15 years AI data center demand
Intel $INTC posted its fastest revenue growth in 15 years last quarter, with sales up 25% to $16.1 billion, beating Wall Street's $14.4 billion estimate. Its data center and AI chip unit grew 59% to over $6 billion, helped by CPU demand for AI agent workloads rather than just GPU
Intel $INTC reported its strongest quarterly revenue growth in 15 years, with second-quarter sales rising 25% to $16.1 billion, beating Wall Street's $14.4 billion consensus estimate by more than $1.7 billion. Adjusted earnings came in at 42 cents per share, double the 21-cent estimate analysts had expected. The company's data center and AI hardware unit was the main driver, growing 59% year over year to more than $6 billion. Much of that demand is tied to central processing units rather than graphics chips, since CPUs handle memory-intensive tasks like system orchestration that AI agents rely on for extended, multi-step operations. AMD and Nvidia have both reported similar strength in CPU sales alongside their GPU businesses. Intel's chip foundry business also improved, with revenue up 31% to $5.8 billion while narrowing operating losses by nearly 18 percentage points from a year earlier, a business the U.S. government has backed for national security reasons given that the world's most advanced chip foundries are concentrated in Taiwan. Overall, Intel generated $4.5 billion in free cash flow in the quarter, after years of burning cash, and guided to revenue of $15.8 billion to $16.8 billion for the current quarter.