NEW YORK, Feb 26, 2026, 06:56 EST — Premarket
- Intel shares slipped in premarket, giving back ground after climbing for two straight sessions.
- Watch Intel’s link-up with SambaNova on AI inference, plus what Nvidia’s move signals for the rest of chips.
- U.S. data coming up later this week has traders watching closely before the cash session starts.
Intel Corp (INTC) slipped 0.7% to $46.54 ahead of the bell Thursday, according to premarket quotes at 6:07 a.m. ET. On Wednesday, the stock wrapped up 1.65% higher at $46.88. (Yahoo Finance)
This hiccup lands at a tricky moment for Intel, which is staking its claim in “inference”—that’s the business of actually running AI models after the training phase—even as investors grow choosier about which companies actually benefit from AI hype. The vibe has flipped: investors want results, not just capex, and now chip stocks are under the microscope.
U.S. stock index futures barely budged before the bell, even after Nvidia’s results beat expectations—momentum fizzled quickly. “Markets are now moving into a phase where they want to see tangible results of AI monetization,” said Raffi Boyadjian, lead market analyst at Trading Point. (Reuters)
Intel has a new angle in play: AI chip firm SambaNova Systems just pulled in $350 million from a funding round headed up by Vista Equity Partners and Cambium Capital—Intel Capital was in, too. SambaNova inked a multi-year deal with Intel, targeting cheaper AI inference offerings. SoftBank Corp will be the first to roll out SambaNova’s SN50 chip at its Japanese AI data centers. (Reuters)
“AI is no longer a contest to build the biggest model,” said Rodrigo Liang, co-founder and CEO of SambaNova. Kevork Kechichian, who leads Intel’s data-center business, pointed out that customers now want “more choice and more efficient ways to scale AI” — not just GPUs, the chips that have defined most AI workloads so far. (Sambanova)
Intel described the partnership as a move centered on Xeon-powered infrastructure, positioning it as a rack-level answer for inference jobs until Intel’s own GPU-based solutions are fully ready. The chipmaker emphasized that the deal doesn’t alter its competitive ambitions in AI, and said it will continue to pour investment into both GPU hardware and software. (Newsroom)
The landscape is getting tougher. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, speaking to analysts Wednesday, said, “We love CPUs as well as GPUs,” as the company ramps up efforts in central processing units—territory traditionally dominated by Intel and AMD. Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies pointed out that AI “agents” increasingly rely on CPUs. (Reuters)
Nvidia’s revenue jumped 94% to $68.13 billion, with the company projecting current-quarter sales of $78 billion, outpacing the $72.60 billion analysts had expected. Shares barely budged after hours—a sign that, in the AI space, even standout results sometimes aren’t enough. (Reuters)
Intel shares, despite clawing back some ground lately, are still sitting roughly 14% under the 52-week peak of $54.60 set on Jan. 22. Wednesday’s volume came in at 74.4 million shares—noticeably lighter than the 50-day average, according to MarketWatch data. (MarketWatch)
The SambaNova partnership is still in its infancy, and investors haven’t shown much patience for delays or unclear revenue paths. Should the mood shift and investors sense AI infrastructure budgets peaking, Intel’s gains this week might quickly evaporate when trading resumes.
Traders are set to see U.S. initial jobless claims numbers hit at 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ January Producer Price Index drops at 8:30 a.m. ET Friday, Feb. 27. For Intel, it’s all eyes on the 9:30 a.m. cash open, as usual. (Doleta)
