Bank of America Bank moved Intel to Buy from Underperform and raised its price target to $135 from $96, a rare double upgrade that sent Intel shares up 5.1% in the morning session.
Analyst Vivek Arya anchored the call to stronger server CPU demand tied to agentic AI workloads and to what he described as improved visibility for Intel Foundry after reporting that Google and Alphabet planned to have Intel produce more than three million TPUs in 2028. Morgan Stanley has estimated Google could build more than six million TPUs across 2027–2028, meaning Intel’s reported order would represent roughly half of that two‑year plan if it holds.
The upgrade landed against a backdrop of measurable top‑line momentum at Intel: Q1 2026 revenue was $13.58 billion, about $1.16 billion ahead of consensus, and Data Center and AI revenue climbed 22% to $5.1 billion. The buy call was described internally and by market watchers as part of a foundry turnaround narrative under CEO Lip‑Bu Tan, and Bank of America’s move provided fresh sell‑side backing for that thesis.
But the upside case contains a clear qualifier. The Information reported the Google production order; neither Google nor Intel has officially confirmed the deal, and JPMorgan warned the chips may still be fabricated at TSMC with Intel handling packaging only — dismissing the excitement as a “storm in a teacup.” That alternative would shrink the commercial prize for Intel. Adding to the ambiguity, Nvidia is running early multi‑project wafer tests on Intel’s 18A process for a multi‑die GPU tied to its Feynman architecture, yet Nvidia has not placed a production order with Intel, and EMIB advanced packaging has been discussed as another path where foundry capacity constraints exist.
Investors that cheered the upgrade should weigh those contingencies: Intel has had 51 moves greater than 5% over the last year, making volatility the practical backdrop for any ratings change. The single consequential open question now is whether Google and Intel will confirm a full production relationship for TPUs in 2028 — if they do, Bank of America’s higher target and the foundry narrative gain concrete revenue and capacity implications; if they do not, the upgrade looks premised on a potential rather than a realized volume stream.
