If chip stock Intel (INTC) needed anything right now, a powerful friend is probably not very far down the list. And that is just what it got, as vice-president JD Vance stepped up on Intel’s behalf, declaring that the United States would continue to make chips. The declaration was an out of the park hit for Intel, and shares were up nearly 7% in Tuesday afternoon’s trading.
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Vance was at the Paris AI summit, and declared that the United States would outright “…block efforts, full stop” on the part of “authoritarian regimes” attempting to steal artificial intelligence in a bid to “strengthen their military position.” And certainly, that would mean protection for Intel.
Intel has already won several billion dollars’ worth of government contracts, as well as outright subsidies, as it works to strengthen its foundry operations in the United States. Vance also openly declared, reports noted, that the United States would not only lead the way in AI chips, but also the software, and even how the rules around the use of AI would be structured. The remarks did not want for boldness, but also brought controversy as much of what Vance called for required large-scale restructuring of policies, even outright laws, throughout Europe and beyond.
A Security Report Win
While Intel has certainly taken a beating recently at the hands of major competitors Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Nvidia (NVDA), Intel managed to get a little back today with the release of a new security report.
Intel noted that 96% of new vulnerabilities were discovered internally last year, the report noted, and that it addressed all of its hardware issues entirely in-house as well. By way of comparison, the report noted, AMD had more than four times the number of security vulnerabilities in its firmware that Intel had, and Nvidia had nearly twice the number Intel did, at 80% more, in its graphics processing units (GPUs).
Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on one Buy, 26 Holds and five Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 51.54% loss in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $21.98 per share implies 4.15% upside potential.
