Intel Corporation shares ran higher in pre-open trading, rising nearly 5.9% to $114.27, after CEO Lip-Bu Tan used a high-profile Computex 2026 keynote in Taipei to lay out the company’s next-generation AI chip and infrastructure plans. The presentation included the formal introduction of Intel’s Xeon 6 Plus processor, built on the company’s 18A process node and offering up to 288 E-cores, which Intel positioned for high-density inference and agentic AI workloads inside data centers.
Executives described the Xeon 6 Plus as part of a push to capture demand from inference-centric and agentic AI applications, a segment Intel believes could drive a renewed cycle of CPU demand. The product launch was accompanied by announcements of rackscale AI infrastructure partnerships with SambaNova and Foxconn tailored to inference and agentic workloads.
Market sentiment around the stock received an additional boost from multiple Wall Street firms that adjusted their price targets following the Computex disclosures. Mizuho raised its target to $128 from $124, Wells Fargo lifted its target to $110 from $85, and Barclays moved its target to $100 from $65. Those coordinated adjustments provided a meaningful pre-market sentiment tailwind, traders said.
Separately, Vector Core Compute - described as a new enterprise inference cloud backed by Vista Equity Partners and Cambium Capital - unveiled a disaggregated inference platform that runs on Intel Xeon processors alongside SambaNova RDUs and Nvidia Blackwell GPUs. Together.ai was identified as the platform’s first commercial customer, according to the announcements made in connection with Computex.
The pre-open recovery also reflected a technical snapback from the previous session, when Intel shares fell sharply after Nvidia used its Computex presentation to introduce the Vera CPU and the RTX Spark laptop chip, moves that pressured both Intel and AMD. That earlier weakness left the stock in an oversold position going into the current session, market technicians noted.
Broad U.S. equity market action provided only modest support for the move in Intel. The S&P 500 inched up roughly 0.1% and the Dow Jones added about 0.5%, while the Nasdaq traded essentially flat, indicating that the rally in Intel was primarily driven by company-specific developments rather than a broad market advance.
Taken together, the combination of a marquee product debut on the 18A node, a clearer strategic emphasis on agentic AI and CPU-led data center infrastructure, coordinated analyst upgrades, and a rebound from oversold conditions following the prior day’s sell-off converged to push Intel’s shares notably higher in pre-market trading.
Relevant market moves and company actions
- Intel unveiled the Xeon 6 Plus processor - 18A node, up to 288 E-cores - aimed at high-density inference and agentic AI data-center workloads.
- Intel announced rackscale AI infrastructure partnerships with SambaNova and Foxconn for inference and agentic workloads.
- Vector Core Compute, backed by Vista Equity Partners and Cambium Capital, introduced a disaggregated inference platform using Intel Xeon processors, SambaNova RDUs and Nvidia Blackwell GPUs, naming Together.ai as its first commercial customer.
- Analysts raised price targets post-Computex: Mizuho to $128 from $124, Wells Fargo to $110 from $85, Barclays to $100 from $65.