Intel Hits All-Time High as Apple Chip Deal Signals Foundry Validation

Intel's stock price rose more than 13% to an intraday high of $130.57 on Friday, beating its previous all-time high of $75.81 set during the dot-com era by about 72%.

This happened after the Wall Street Journal reported that Intel and Apple have reached a preliminary agreement to make some of the chips that power Apple products. Twenty-six years later, the stock is up more than 200%. Intel's price was close to its 52-week low of $18.96 a year ago.

Apple(AAPL) shares added 2%. Both companies declined to comment.

The deal, if approved and carried out, would be Intel's biggest external foundry win ever. It would also be the best proof yet that CEO Lip-Bu Tan's plan to turn the company around has moved from being a story to a business reality.

What the Deal Would Mean for Both Companies

If Intel worked with Apple to make products, its foundry business would go from being an internal operation with possible external use to a tool that has been used in the real world. Apple sends millions of iPads, Macs, and more than 200 million iPhones every year. This volume would give Intel the foundry utilisation, revenue certainty, and manufacturing learning curve it needs to bring in more outside customers.

Ben Bajarin, a chip expert at Creative Strategies, said, "I am sure this will happen." "I have no idea when." He said that Intel was "the only place that can scale up capacity as a viable second source" for Apple. This is because Intel's new chip fabrication plant in Chandler, Arizona, is now making a lot of chips on its 18A process node, which is meant to compete with TSMC's 2nm technology, which is only made in Taiwan.

Bajarin said that Apple probably won't commit to large production runs until 18A-P, which is Intel's next version. "A little bit rough" was how he put it, and 18A-P "cleans a lot of stuff up." Based on that schedule, Apple's first chips made by Intel should come out in about 18 months, which is in line with a production start in 2027.

For Apple, the deal ends a decade of getting almost all of its most complex chips from TSMC. The only company that buys more from TSMC than Apple is Nvidia. Because of the high demand for AI chips, TSMC's wafer capacity is already being used to its fullest. This creates supply problems that make a second foundry source strategically necessary rather than just desired. Intel's manufacturing in the U.S. is also in line with Apple's commitments to a local supply chain. This lowers Taiwan's geopolitical risk of concentration.

The White House Connection — and a $50 Billion Government Position

The history of the deal adds a layer that goes beyond regular business negotiations. At a meeting at the White House, President Trump personally pushed Intel's products on Apple CEO Tim Cook. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also helped with the approach. If the deal goes through, it will be a political and business win for the Trump government, which has been a strong supporter of making semiconductors in the United States.

The government now has a big financial interest in how things turn out. Through the CHIPS and Science Act and safe semiconductor programmes, the U.S. bought a 9.9% stake in Intel in August of last year. This was made up of 433.3 million shares worth $20.47 each, for a total of $8.9 billion. Since Intel is now worth more than $120, the government's stake has grown to worth well over $50 billion. The number of dollars Trump said he made for the U.S. from the Intel investment has gone up since he said it on Truth Social.

C.C. Wei, President and CEO of TSMC, called Intel a "formidable competitor" last month. This was a big change in tone, which Bajarin saw as an effort to be more diplomatic before an expected customer reveal. "If you're about to have one of your largest customers probably sign a deal with a competing foundry, that would be the kind of thing you say," he stated.

Intel's Turnaround Timeline: From $18.96 to $130 in 12 Months

Intel has come back from its 2025 lows very quickly, which is amazing by any measure. The steps that led to the $130 print: an equity stake in the government gave authority and money in August 2025; the launch of the Panther Lake chip showed that 18A manufacturing was possible; an investment of $5 billion by Nvidia and $2 billion by Institutional investors were reassured by SoftBank's investment in the foundry plan; Q1 2026 earnings showed record-breaking revenue growth of 22% in data centres; Elon Musk promised to use Intel's 14A plan for the Terafab project; Google promised several generations of CPUs for AI tasks; and now Apple's preliminary foundry agreement has come.

Intel also works with Amazon and Cisco on advanced packing, which is the process of joining chip dies and memory into whole processor systems. This puts it in a position to serve more than one part of the AI infrastructure supply chain at the same time.

AMD is still under real heat from its competitors. AMD's record $421 session last week, which came after its server CPU market forecast doubled to $120 billion, shows that the CPU renaissance is good for many companies.

However, Intel's foundry difference gives the company a way to make money that AMD can't match. Intel is still the only company that plans, builds, and packages its own high-tech chips and also offers all three services to other companies.

At $130, Intel is pricing an execution situation that didn't seem likely a year ago. The market had been waiting for the Apple deal, even though it is still in its early stages and neither side has confirmed it. The fact that Bajarin said Intel "has got through the rough patch and can now be considered a credible second source" shows a long-term shift in the competitive landscape, not just a short-term change in how people feel.

There are still risks: 18A yield improvements need to keep happening, 18A-P needs to live up to its cleaner specs, and Apple's full production commitment depends on 18 months of work. However, the direction is clear. Intel is no longer the company that missed the AI era; it is now one of the ones that makes it possible.