Wall Street is calling on Intel Corporation (INTC.US) to regain its "magic"! The demand for intelligent bodies is soaring, and analysts are raising their target prices one after another.

Wall Street analysts say that after years of struggling and losing market share to competitors, Intel Corporation's first-quarter financial report and performance guidance indicate that this tech giant has regained its "magic". And this is largely thanks to Agentic AI. In pre-market trading on Friday, Intel Corporation's stock price surged by 27%, while competitors AMD and Arm saw increases of about 10%. Intel Corporation expects second-quarter revenue to be between $13.8 billion and $14.8 billion, with the midpoint of $14.3 billion significantly higher than the analyst average expectation of $13 billion; it expects adjusted earnings per share for the second quarter to be $0.20, also significantly higher than analysts' average expectation of $0.09; and it expects gross margin for the second quarter to be 39%. Wade Bush Securities analyst Matt Bryson wrote in a report to clients, "Management suggests that even with exceptionally strong sales performance, customers' computing demands (mainly servers CPUs) are still not being met, with the gap measured in 'billions'." While Bryson is cautious about Intel Corporation's view that "consumer PC makers will rebuild inventory", he does believe that with its increased internal wafer factory supply capacity, Intel Corporation is the best candidate to serve the unexpectedly high demand for server CPUs driven by reasoning loads and AI-enabled intelligent agents. Bryson added, "In turn, this background leads us to believe that the business improvement enjoyed by Intel Corporation in the first and second quarters is sustainable." After the financial report was released, Bryson maintained a "neutral" rating on Intel Corporation, but raised its target price from $30 to $60. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. analyst Brian Curtis also noted the trend of Agentic AI, but he suggested that this prosperity may temporarily overshadow other internal issues at the company led by Pat Gelsinger. Curtis wrote in his report, "The surge in XPU utilization is driving real server CPU demand. Intel Corporation pointed out that server shipments recorded double-digit growth, with momentum expected to extend until 2027, but AMD's growth may be better. The PC business seems to be softening, with management 'cautiously planning' for weak PC demand in the second half of the year, and pointing out that the total addressable market (TAM) for PC unit shipments for the full year is expected to see a double-digit low single-digit decline." Curtis continued, "We still believe that AMD is in a more favorable position in the server market, and with the Venice (2nm) architecture expected to be unveiled in the second half of 2026 or the first half of 2027, the gap is likely to widen further. In the meantime, Intel Corporation remains a clear beneficiary of structural demand and we expect that in the foreseeable future, the supply-demand imbalance will firmly favor the company." Curtis also maintained a "holding" rating on Intel Corporation, but raised his target price from $40 to $60. Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore expressed a similar viewpoint, forecasting strong demand for CPUs to continue as shortages "may persist for a while". However, he expressed caution about Intel Corporation's position. Moore wrote, "CPUs are evidently more important for reasoning loads, but we do not agree with the so-called 'simple algorithm' for the CPU-GPU ratio. Intel Corporation mentioned that the historical cluster ratio of GPUs to CPUs has decreased from 8:1 to 4:1 or even lower - but this number is misleading, as there is one Bianca card for every two GPUs and one head node CPU, plus host nodes." "This is also somewhat misleading, as the vast majority of Intel Corporation CPUs are not in AI data centers, so AI growth only applies to a relatively small portion of its shipments. There is also market share pressure: NVIDIA Corporation is transferring some CPU racks from Intel Corporation to Vera; Trainium is transferring head nodes from Intel Corporation to ARM; TPU and Trainium are both transferring host nodes from x86 to ARM. And AMD clearly favors its own CPUs. Therefore, most of the important CPUs in the AI field are facing headwinds of declining market share. Intel Corporation does have wafer factories, which is meaningful in times of shortage, but AMD may clearly indicate that if necessary, they can obtain more wafers; we certainly do not believe that AMD will lose market share in the midterm." Moore gave Intel Corporation a "holding" rating, but raised its target price from $56 to $73.