Chip stock Intel (INTC) has been out to put investment in SambaNova for quite some time now, and the good news is that antitrust authorities in the United States seem to have signed off on the deal. That development was surprisingly welcome to Intel investors—one of which is the United States itself—and they sent shares shooting up nearly 4.5% in Friday afternoon’s trading.
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Intel parked $35 million into SambaNova, an operation chaired by Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. That move raised some eyebrows, as some saw it as a way for one Tan-headed company to benefit from another, much larger Tan-headed company. And it does not look to stop there, either, as Intel previously noted plans to put another $15 million into SambaNova on top of what it already put in.
Regulatory approval is on Intel’s side on this one, and should likely remain so if Intel does ultimately put more cash in. But SambaNova has a critical set of tools that have Intel’s interest. Specifically, SambaNova has been doing a lot of work on AI inference systems, which are useful for enterprise tools as well as the agentic AI market. While Intel has been recovering on the AI front since more functions are turning to CPUs rather than GPUs, Intel is also eager to pick up more application functions. That is where SambaNova can help out.
More About 18A-P
The release of the 18A-P process node has delivered plenty of impact for Intel, and new reports suggest that chips made with this process are delivering a lot more than we have already heard about. We already know about the roughly 9% improvement in performance, but 18A-P actually has more to offer.
One of the biggest improvements 18A-P is offering is in thermal conductivity. That metric is improved by about 50% under 18A-P, and with that comes improved power densities and improved negative-bias temperature instability. This means better power consumption rates, improved operations, and greater stability at high temperatures. That will be particularly important for data center chips, which live in high-temperature environments.
Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on 11 Buys, 23 Holds and three Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 358.2% rally in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $79.25 per share implies 19.84% downside risk.
