“Intel Foundry Will Need to Earn (Intel’s) Business”: Intel Stock (NASDAQ:INTC) Slips as Intel Looks for Better Deal Than Intel

In what may be one of the strangest developments coming out of chip stock Intel (INTC) recently—and there has been no shortage of strangeness to go around—Intel has made it clear that Intel Foundry will not always have Intel’s business. For those scratching their heads and wondering why Intel bothered to build factories if they were not going to use them, you are not alone. And Intel shares slipped fractionally in Wednesday afternoon’s trading as a result.

The word came from CEO of Intel Products Michelle Johnston Holthaus. And in recent remarks, she made a baffling statement: “…sometimes an Intel Foundry is going to make sense for my products and sometimes it will not.” On a certain level, this makes sense; Intel Products and Intel Foundry are two separate divisions, after all. But perhaps Holthaus failed to consider the impact that making it clear she would not always buy her company’s own products to produce her company’s own products would have on outsider perception.

By way of explanation, Holthaus elaborated, noting that she prioritizes making the best product rather than working internally. Sometimes, that may mean going outside of Intel’s own production, as she did with one new product that calls on both Intel Foundry and Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM). And certainly, Intel Products does turn to Intel Foundry routinely; current collaboration is about 70% internal and 30% external.

The Return of Omni-Path Networking

In another unexpected twist, a former Intel property—Omni-Path networking—is getting a bit of a revival. Omni-Path was originally sold to Cornelis Networks, a startup, back in 2020. But apparently, Cornelis put it to work in some interesting new ways.

Cornelis reportedly put Omni-Path into its CN5000 product line, which includes a variety of products from network interface cards to network software. Apparently, now—with some retooling—Omni-Path is delivering “better performance per watt” and is also serving as part of the growing infrastructure around, you guessed it, artificial intelligence (AI). It is easy to wonder, therefore, if Intel wishes it had that tool back now, given its own attempts to push into the AI infrastructure space.

Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell?

Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on two Buys, 25 Holds and four Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 34.08% loss in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $21.29 per share implies 4.64% upside potential.

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