Intel

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) makes the CPUs in most of the world’s PCs and servers, and wants to make chips for others too: Intel Foundry, its bet on contract manufacturing, the business TSMC has cornered. That bet is why Intel sits in the AI-capex buildout: after a decade of missed process nodes, whether Intel can build the next thing is a question the market re-prices every earnings call.

On 29 October Intel reported Q3 revenue of $16.5 billion, up 21% on a year earlier, and non-GAAP earnings of $0.52 a share against its own $0.38 guide. Data center revenue rose 78% to $7.3 billion; PC chips fell 5% to $8.1 billion. The Q4 guide of $15.0–16.0 billion sat about $1.8 billion below analysts, by one analyst’s count on the call, which Intel did not dispute. Intel blamed PC makers signalling a slowdown as memory prices climbed, which its CFO expects to last “at least through the first half of next year”, and a mid-October accident that halted Fab 28 in Kiryat Gat, Israel. INTC traded about 30% lower on 30 October and the selling spread across chips; we trace why in the PC pays the memory bill.

The print split Intel in two. Data center is short of supply: Intel said on the call that demand still exceeds what substrates and Intel 3 capacity let it make. PCs are short of demand. Intel guided Q4 data center up in the mid-teens percent from Q3 and PCs down more than 20%; on our arithmetic that is about $8.4 billion against under $6.5 billion, so on Intel’s own guide data center outsells PCs in Q4.

Situational Awareness LP, the fund Leopold Aschenbrenner runs, reported calls on 20,237,400 Intel shares in its 13F for the quarter ended 31 March 2025 (filed 14 May 2025, source), valued at $459.6m — the value of the underlying shares at that quarter’s $22.71 close, not a premium or capital at risk. Its 13F for the quarter ended 31 March 2026 (filed 18 May 2026, source) showed puts on 3,605,400 shares instead, valued at $159.1m at the $44.13 close, and its 13F for 30 June 2026, filed 14 August, lists no Intel position. A 13F says what a fund held at quarter-end, never why or at what cost; see Situational Awareness LP’s full book.

The first turn was a rescue. In summer 2025 Reuters sources put the share of 18A chips meeting specification at about 10%. On 22 August 2025 the US took a nearly 10% stake by converting CHIPS Act grants to equity; INTC closed up more than 5% at $24.80. Nvidia agreed in September to buy 214.7 million shares at $23.28, about $5 billion, and completed the purchase that December. The record moved from troubled chipmaker to rescued one.

The second turn was a run. On 1 April Intel agreed to pay $14.2 billion for Apollo’s 49% of Fab 34 in Ireland, and INTC added more than $100 billion in value over nine sessions. Q1 revenue rose 7% to $13.58 billion; the next day the stock closed up 23.6%, its best day since October 1987, and April was its best month on record, up 114%. A report of Apple talks on 5 May and a Trump claim of an Apple deal on 18 June each lifted the stock more than 10%. INTC closed at $140.94 on 22 June, the high in our archive. Q2 revenue rose 25% to $16.1 billion on 23 July.

The third turn is the bill. On 12 August Intel sold about 242 million new shares at $95.00, raising $23.0 billion before costs. All year the record traced memory costs into the PC: in December 2025 IDC warned PC shipments could shrink up to 9% in 2026; in February HP said memory had reached 35% of its PC costs, up from 15–18% a quarter earlier; at the end of September Micron’s chief executive said shortages would last into 2028. On 29 October the bill reached Intel. INTC closed that day at $92.07, below the August offering price, and traded about 30% lower the next.

TEXXR’s knowledge graph carries 500 hyperedges touching Intel, and their mix tracks the same turns as the price. In 2025Q3, when the government and Nvidia bought in, financial edges ran 40% of the total and the top co-entities were Nvidia, the U.S. government and Lip-Bu Tan: a company defined by who was propping it up. By 2026Q1 labelled edges ran 41% launch and 20% competitor, led by AMD and the 18A process — though TEXXR began using the competitor label only that quarter, so part of the swing is the tool’s. On 29 October two confirmed financial edges returned: Intel forecasting Q4 below estimates, and blaming PC softness. TEXXR tagged 52 Intel articles in 2026Q4 by 29 October, against a full-quarter average of 45.2 over the prior eight quarters; 2026Q2’s 64 is still the 16-quarter high.

Positioning: how much of INTC is sold short, on the record brokers file twice a month. It lags by design — read it as where the crowd stood, not where it stands.

Signals in the coverage record, not trade ideas:

• 18A yields: answered for now. Intel said on the Q3 call that 18A yields are ahead of its internal plan, the question June’s Panther Lake shortage left open.
• Two foundry customers, by about April 2027. The call named no foundry customer, Apple included; Intel expects to name two within two quarters. Every Apple edge in the graph is still tagged rumored.
• The government stake now runs backwards. Intel carries the 132 million shares it holds in escrow for the government as a liability marked to its own share price, so a falling stock shows up as a GAAP gain — $1.0 billion in Q3, after a $12.6 billion loss over nine months while the stock rose.
• Fab 28’s restart, and the Q1 hit. Intel expected the fab back by the end of October, put the Q4 cost at about $300 million of revenue and two points of gross margin, and expects Q1 to look similar. The 10-Q says why one site matters this much: “A significant portion of our current and anticipated future revenues are generated from products on Intel 7 manufactured at our fabrication facility in Israel. As we are not insured for business interruptions resulting from war or political violence, a disruption of that facility could have a significant adverse impact on our business.”
• The 2027 capex figure. Intel put 2026 gross capex near $20 billion and said 2027 will rise sharply, with no number yet; it expects spending to outrun operating cash flow in 2027.
• Micron’s December report. Intel tied any PC recovery to memory prices easing; Micron’s quarter is the next read on whether they are.

Intel lives or dies by the same constraint as these names — small equal-weighted groups, one constraint each. Not investment products: see all categories.