Intel is completing a quarter in which its business figures are exceptionally worth considering without accounting standards. In the figures according to the common US standard General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), the immense increase in Intel shares caused a huge net book loss of a good eleven billion US dollars.
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This is due to the trust shares that Intel is holding back due to a funding agreement with the US government. This stipulates that Intel will gradually release shares as soon as US funding is available to fulfill milestones. Because the shares are in a trust account, Intel has to record price increases as losses.
In the second quarter that was -13.6 billion US dollars. During the period, the stock rose from around $44 to around $130. Excluding the book loss, the company reports a net profit of $2.2 billion in the so-called non-GAAP figures.
Real plus without external financial injections
Various other key figures prove that Intel is now profitable again even without external financial injections: of a good 16.1 billion US dollars in sales, 1.8 billion US dollars remain in operating profit before taxes. Compared to the same period last year, sales grew by 25 percent. Company CEO Lip-Bu Tan notes that this is the largest growth in more than 15 years.
Intel is now operationally in the black again because the mass layoffs are over and there are no longer billions in severance costs. In the first quarter of 2026, Intel spent over four billion US dollars on this. The gross margin climbs to 40.4 percent. A year earlier it was a measly 27.5 percent.
Intel now also in the AI boom
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The growth comes largely from the boom in AI agents, which is bringing server CPUs back into focus. They take on numerous tasks of the AI agents. This means that Intel is now also benefiting from the AI hype after its AI accelerators were never well received.
The sales of the Data Center and AI (DCAI) division grew by 59 percent to almost 6.3 billion US dollars within a year, mainly through the sale of Xeon processors. With almost 2.5 billion US dollars in operating profit, the division narrowly overtakes the end customer business with core processors. The latter grew by 13 percent to almost $8.9 billion in sales. It records a good 2.3 billion US dollars as operating profit.
Client Computing and Physical AI Group (CCPG, mainly core processors)
Intel
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Intel has already switched production capacity from notebook and desktop processors to Xeon models for servers. This also creates price pressure on end customer devices, which in turn benefits Intel’s margin.
The manufacturing subsidiary Intel Foundry is gradually reducing its own losses. Sales increased by 31 percent compared to the previous year to almost 5.8 billion US dollars. About 95 percent comes from Intel’s processor divisions; Most of the rest probably comes from processing chips (advanced packaging) for external customers.
Plus on the stock market
In the third quarter now underway, Intel expects sales of $15.8 billion to $16.8 billion and an average gross margin of 41 percent. GAAP net income is expected to be $1.6 billion.
The share is up in after-hours trading, but fluctuates significantly between +4 and +12 percent.
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