Intel has beaten analyst expectations for the second consecutive quarter, posting Year-over-Year (YoY) revenue growth of 25 percent for Q2 2026, the fastest rate experienced by the chipmaker in almost 15 years.. Second-quarter revenue totaled $16.1 billion, with the strongest growth once again coming from the company’s Data Center and AI (DCAI) segment, which saw revenue top $6.3bn, up 24 percent Quarter-over-Quarter (QoQ) and 59 percent YoY..
Operating profit for DCAI was $2.5bn for the quarter.. – Charlotte Trueman. Intel Foundry also posted revenue growth for Q2, up six percent QoQ and 31 percent YoY to $5.8bn. Intel CFO David Zinsner attributed this to strong growth from its Intel 18A offering, with output approximately 25 percent above target and up more than 50 percent QoQ..
External Foundry revenue was $293 million for the quarter; however, the segment is still operating at a loss, losing $2.1bn in the three-month period. “[This $2.1bn figure] is $348 million better Quarter-over-Quarter, as higher yields, improved cycle times and increased factory scale across Intel 4/3 and 18A drove improved wafer costs,” Zinsner said..
For Q3 2026, Intel is forecasting revenue of between $15.8bn and $16.8bn.. Discussing Intel Foundry on an earnings call following the publication of the results, CEO Lip-Bu Tan said his confidence in the company’s foundry process roadmap has “grown significantly” since he took over the top job..
“I am more confident than ever of the strategic significance and unique value proposition of Intel Foundry,” Tan said. “During Q2, our factories across Intel 7, Intel 3, and Intel 18A exceeded internal volume targets, driven by improving yields, better cycle times, and increasing wafer starts.
18A output increased meaningfully in the quarter.”. He went on to say that yields were continuing to track ahead of expectations and that Intel was now ramping multiple new products on 18A while supporting growing demand for products including Panther Lake and Wildcat Lake.. “I keep raising the bar on the internal targets, and the team continues to meet the challenge.
The successful volume ramp of 18A for our internal products provides important validations as our Intel Foundry engages with external customers,” Tan said.. Despite the CEO telling analysts on the call that Intel was “strengthening our outlook with the additional strategic customer wins and long-term agreements in Q2,” the only collaboration publicly announced during the quarter was with Fortinet for the development of the cybersecurity firm’s SP6 chip, revealed earlier this week..
This week it was also reported that Intel was planning to cut an unknown number of jobs, with the headcount reduction set to impact its data center group. No mention of this was made by Tan, Zinsner, or any of the analysts on the call.. Rounding out his comments, Tan turned to memory, noting that it had become “the big supply constraint challenge.”.
“Clearly, memory has become the bottleneck for a lot of AI infrastructure, and is a pain point for customers,” he said. He went on to note that Intel was collaborating with “the big three memory vendors” in order to help alleviate some of the pressure, in addition to tackling the problem architecturally..
“We’re also looking at other areas that we can integrate the compute and the memory, and also stacking, or how we can use the memory utilization more efficiently. There are a lot of areas we are working on. Stay tuned… and we’ll keep you guys posted.”.
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