Thursday, April 23rd 2026
Intel Posts Strong Q1 2026 Results, Lands Tesla as First 14A Node Major Customer
Intel has posted better-than-expected Q1 2026 results, with $13.58 billion in revenue, up 7.2% year over year and well ahead of the $12.42 billion analysts had forecast. Adjusted earnings per share hit 29 cents against an expectation of just one cent, sending the stock up more than 15% in after-hours trading. Data center and AI were strong performers, bringing in $5.1 billion against estimates of $4.41 billion. The foundry division revenue generated $5.4 billion, though the vast majority of that was Intel's own internal business. External customer revenue was less than $200 million, mostly legacy wafer work. Also, Intel ASIC business is on track for more than $1 billion in revenue this year. Part of the Q1 surprising results came from Intel clearing out finished goods inventory it hadn't expected to move, according to CFO David Zinsner. The company is also raising chip prices to offset rising production costs, which is reflected in its Q2 guidance of $13.8 to $14.8 billion, a bit more than the $13 billion Wall Street had estimated.
Going back to the foundry side, Intel scored two notable wins on this front. Tesla signed on as Intel's first major 14A customer for Elon Musk's Terafab AI chip complex in Austin, however, the details of this deal are still unknown. The most logical scenario is that Terafab will license the Intel 14A process, but neither side has confirmed it. The second win came earlier this month when Intel expanded its AI CPU deal with Google, the two companies extending their co-development of custom ASIC-based IPUs.
In this first quarter, Intel launched several new processor families, including Xeon 600 for workstations, Core Ultra 200S Plus and 200HX Plus for desktop and mobile, Core Ultra Series 3 with vPro, Core Series 2 for edge devices, and Core Series 3, the first mainstream chips built on Intel 18A. Worth mentioning that Intel repurchased the 49% equity interest of its Fab 34 in Ireland and expanded assembly and test capacity in Penang, Malaysia.
Source:
Intel
Going back to the foundry side, Intel scored two notable wins on this front. Tesla signed on as Intel's first major 14A customer for Elon Musk's Terafab AI chip complex in Austin, however, the details of this deal are still unknown. The most logical scenario is that Terafab will license the Intel 14A process, but neither side has confirmed it. The second win came earlier this month when Intel expanded its AI CPU deal with Google, the two companies extending their co-development of custom ASIC-based IPUs.
14 Comments on Intel Posts Strong Q1 2026 Results, Lands Tesla as First 14A Node Major Customer
damn that's some good ROI.
That they would make a turn around in less than a year wasn’t expected.
I mean, we're now hearing for months now about how great the node that will start to be utilised only in 2027 is. Anyone remembers their first 10 nm CPU - Core i3-8121U "Cannon Lake", quietly launched in May 2018 in a limited-release Lenovo IdeaPad 330 laptop so they could claim they have a working 10 nm node, although it didn't work for more than a year after that...
It won't last unless Intel is actually going to deliver value again. Not in some random niche, but enterprise wide.
As is visible with panther lake.
that microscopic jump on to an other tile isn't going to change anything about the inches data needs to moves over PCI-e
Ignoring the negative consequences of AI on society, the point is that the average person's needs for technological equipment at home or at work are constantly increasing. Regarding hardware, companies like Nvidia, AMD, Intel, TSMC, Broadcom, and others will only see their market caps trend upwards in the coming years. Unless something truly dramatic happens—a planetary disaster, war, or a global uprising because of unemployment—I personally believe that AMD’s market capitalization will double and Intel’s will triple.
As for Nvidia, I'm not sure. Where Nvidia stands now, it seems to have hit a ceiling. But people have been saying that about Nvidia's market cap since it was at around 200 billion—and now it's at 5 trillion company. Some argue it will reach 20 trillion in the next 10 years. I would say it might move between 8 and 10 trillion. But then again, my crystal ball might be cloudy, and I might not be seeing clearly what it's showing.
If Nvidia buys MediaTek, I know it would have to renegotiate licensing agreements with ARM to produce and sell CPUs, APUs, and SoCs, but this would be NO problem, as ARM would love to license its IP to a huge client like Nvidia. This licensing agreement would be very beneficial for both companies (Nvidia and ARM). The more ARM CPUs are sold, the more ARM will diminish x86 dominance and prevent RISC-V processors from gaining market share from ARM.
Thus, Nvidia would become the largest supplier of ARM CPUs, APUs, and SoCs on the planet for Smart TVs, smartphones, tablets, SoCs for cars, consoles, home PCs (laptops and desktop PCs), etc. Even Microsoft and Sony would start buying ARM SoCs from Nvidia to equip their future consoles. Furthermore, MediaTek is one of the largest suppliers of chips used in routers, modems, HDDs, SSDs, and various other types of devices.
The N1 processor is designed in collaboration with MediaTek. Nvidia doesn't need to acquire MediaTek; they have the GPU expertise, while MediaTek specializes in mobile SoCs. Nvidia has close ties with OEMs due to their GPUs, while MediaTek has its own established clientele. Nvidia is exploiting these advantages. In five to ten years, I expect them to start making laptop and desktop SoCs exclusively on their own. At that point, MediaTek will realize why companies like Apple vowed never to collaborate with Nvidia again.