New York, Feb 18, 2026, 18:17 EST — After-hours.
- Intel fell 1.6% on Wednesday and was flat after hours near $45.46
- Nvidia’s Meta deal includes Arm-based CPUs that compete with Intel and AMD
- Intel said CFO David Zinsner will speak at Morgan Stanley’s TMT conference on March 4
Intel Corp (NASDAQ: INTC) shares fell for a second straight session on Wednesday, closing down 1.6% at $45.46 and holding flat in after-hours trading. The stock ranged from $44.88 to $46.77, with about 63 million shares changing hands. It ended Tuesday down 1.3%. (StockAnalysis)
The move came a day after Nvidia said it had signed a multiyear agreement to sell Meta Platforms millions of its current and future artificial intelligence chips, including CPUs that compete with Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, Reuters reported. Nvidia executive Ian Buck said Grace central processors can “use half the power” for some common tasks such as running databases. (Reuters)
That matters for Intel because server CPUs still set the pace for the data-center stack, even when GPUs do the heavy lifting for AI. If big cloud customers start standardizing on Arm-based chips — processors built on Arm Holdings’ design rather than Intel’s x86 — Intel’s pricing power and share come under strain.
Nvidia shares rose 1.5% on Wednesday, while AMD fell 1.5% and Meta edged up 0.6%.
In a separate press release, Nvidia said Meta will expand deployment of Arm-based Grace CPUs and use “millions” of Blackwell and Rubin GPUs, plus networking gear, in its data centers. “No one deploys AI at Meta’s scale,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said, while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “We’re excited to expand our partnership with NVIDIA.” (NVIDIA Investor Relations)
For Intel investors, the read-through is simple: Nvidia wants to be more than the GPU supplier in the rack. It is pitching Grace and its next-generation Vera CPU as a lower-power option for everyday work like databases, and for so-called AI agents — software that can plan and take actions for a user.
Intel said on Wednesday its CFO, David Zinsner, will take part in a fireside chat — a Q&A-style talk — at Morgan Stanley’s Technology, Media & Telecom Conference on March 4. A live webcast and replay will be available on Intel’s investor relations site, the company said. (Intel Corporation)
The market is still working through Intel’s latest outlook. In late January, the chipmaker forecast first-quarter revenue and profit below estimates and said it was struggling to meet demand for server chips used in AI data centers. (Reuters)
But the near-term risks remain uneven. If Arm-based alternatives gain traction faster, or if Intel’s supply constraints linger, the stock could struggle to find support even as parts of the semiconductor group hold up.
Traders will look for follow-through when the regular session resumes on Thursday, and for any analyst notes that put numbers on the Meta-Nvidia shift. Zinsner’s March 4 appearance is the next fixed point on the calendar for Intel shares.
