Intel stock rallies 25% in five days as CPU demand accelerates alongside growing adoption of AI agents in enterprise.

Intel's stock has surged 25% over the last five days, riding strong demand for central processing units (CPUs) as agentic AI gains traction across enterprise and consumer markets. CEO Lip-Bu Tan highlighted this momentum during an appearance at the AI Infra Summit, noting that CPUs are in high demand due to reinforcement learning, agentic AI, system-level orchestration, and their general-purpose versatility.

CPUs have undergone a dramatic reassessment within AI data centers. Initially overshadowed by graphics processing units (GPUs) that train and run AI models, they have taken on critical importance with the emergence of AI agents. While GPUs power the models themselves, CPUs are the chips that enable agents to perform tasks such as navigating websites and shopping online.

Meta's new Muse AI agent underscores this shift, with market intelligence firm Sensor Tower reporting 2.5 million downloads since its launch on September 8.

Intel is reportedly planning a 10% price increase on its CPUs, according to Digitimes. The company is executing a broader turnaround to reestablish itself as a leader in advanced semiconductors while building out a third-party chip manufacturing business to compete with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

That manufacturing ambition is beginning to bear fruit. In June, The Information reported that Google chose Intel to manufacture its custom Tensor Processing Units. Nvidia is also exploring Intel as a backup chip builder, and SK Hynix is in talks with Intel to produce memory chips, according to Reuters.

The stock performance reflects this renewed momentum. Over the last five months, Intel shares have climbed 159%, outpacing Nvidia's 49% gain but lagging AMD's 180% rise. Over a 12-month horizon, however, Intel leads: up 314% compared to AMD's 293% and Nvidia's 29%.