Intel CEO Hints at Deeper Nvidia Collaboration, Shares Continue to Climb

 TechStockTracker
 
  TechStockTracker
 
Follow  Message
 
 
 
TechStockTracker decode the complex world of finance and investments, with a special emphasis on the dynamic intersection of technology and dividend growth stocks.
 

•  11 May 2026
 

$INTC Intel Corp shares are trading higher after CEO Lip-Bu Tan dropped a signal about continued deepening of collaboration with Nvidia, a catalyst that is accelerating earnings momentum across the foundry thesis. Tan had originally posted on X to congratulate Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on receiving an honorary doctorate in science and technology from Carnegie Mellon University, an event Tan attended in person where he placed the academic gown on Huang. The post noted that Intel and Nvidia are working together on "exciting new products," language the market interpreted as confirmation of expanded commercial ties between the two chip giants. The stock rose more than 2% at the open.

This move builds on a broader repricing of Intel that has been underway, with the stock more than doubling over the past month as institutional flows rotate back into the name on renewed confidence in its manufacturing and packaging operations. Intel and Nvidia announced in September that they are jointly developing data center products enabling connectivity between Intel CPUs and Nvidia GPUs for artificial intelligence workloads. The two companies are also working on the personal computing side, with plans to integrate Nvidia RTX chips into Intel system-on-chip architectures as local AI demand grows. Nvidia has separately committed to investing $5 billion in Intel, a move widely read as a strategic vote of confidence.

Apple has also entered the picture in recent days, with reports indicating Intel and Apple have reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to manufacture chips for a portion of Apple products. The specific products involved have not been disclosed, but the prospect of Apple returning to Intel for manufacturing is enough on its own to drive multiple expansion in how the market values the foundry unit. Intel Foundry generated $5.4 billion in revenue in the first quarter, up 16% year over year, though Intel itself remains the primary customer of that operation. The market is waiting to see whether Intel can convert that internal base into meaningful external customer wins.

A further catalyst comes from packaging, where Intel is in discussions with South Korea's SK Hynix regarding use of Intel's packaging technology to integrate HBM memory with logic chips, according to a ZDNet Korea report. The technology in question is EMIB, Intel's method of connecting chip components through tiny bridges embedded in a substrate, which the company positions as an alternative to TSMC's CoWoS packaging. Industry analysis identifies structural advantages in EMIB, primarily its elimination of the interposer layer, which can simplify chip architecture and improve manufacturing efficiency. Potential limitations include lower bandwidth, longer transmission distances, and slightly higher latency relative to certain TSMC solutions.

The AI agent wave is providing an additional layer of support for Intel's positioning. While Nvidia GPUs remain central to training and running AI models, many of the tasks agents execute in practice, including file organization, presentation creation, and application management, rely on the central processors Intel manufactures. That dynamic adds a credible demand floor underneath Intel's core business as the industry shifts toward agentic AI deployment.

View all market intelligence →