ByAFP
April 23, 2026
Intel says a boom in AI 'agents' that independently tend to computer tasks is helping fuel demand for the US chip maker's products - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP JUSTIN SULLIVAN
Glenn CHAPMAN
Shares in Intel soared on Thursday after it smashed quarterly earnings expectations in what could be a sign that the US chip maker is on a path to recovery.
Intel reported revenue of $13.6 billion in a 7 percent increase from the same quarter a year earlier, but logged a $3.7 billion loss that was less than the market had anticipated.
It forecast revenue in the current quarter would range from $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion.
Shares soared more than 19 percent in after-market trades.
“The next wave of AI will bring intelligence closer to the end user, moving from foundational models to inference to agentic,” Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in the earnings release.
“This shift is significantly increasing the need for Intel’s CPUs and wafer and advanced packaging offerings.”
A hot AI trend of digital “agents” specializing in handling computer tasks independently means more work for networks using the kinds of processing units made by Intel local networks rather than cutting edge GPUs in datacenters, according to Tan.
Shares in Intel took off late last year after AI giant Nvidia announced it would invest $5 billion in its lagging rival.
“Intel delivered the kind of report that the bulls needed to justify a stock that’s soared over the past year, with data center momentum and foundry progress both pointing in the right direction,” Emarketer analyst Jacob Bourne said of the earnings.
“These results make Intel’s turnaround look less like a hope-fueled blip and more like a steadier longer-term trajectory.”
– Intel allies –
Nvidia joined Japanese investment giant SoftBank and the US government in backing the once-dominant chipmaker, which has fallen behind in recent years after missing key technology shifts.
President Donald Trump’s administration surprised the tech industry last year by taking a 10 percent equity stake in Intel, recognizing the strategic importance of the company that powered the PC and internet revolution with its processors.
Intel largely missed the smartphone boom and failed to develop competitive hardware for the AI era, allowing Asian manufacturers TSMC and Samsung to dominate the custom semiconductor market.
Most notably, Intel was blindsided by Nvidia’s rise as the world’s leading AI chip provider.
Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs), originally designed for gaming consoles, have become the essential building blocks of artificial intelligence systems, with tech giants scrambling to secure them for their data servers and AI projects.
Tan, who took over as Intel CEO a year ago amid layoffs and market challenges, has acknowledged the difficulty of turning the company around, particularly as US-China trade tensions complicate the semiconductor landscape.
“A year ago, the conversation about Intel was about whether we could survive,” Tan said.
“Today is about how quickly we can add manufacturing capacity and scale our supply to meet enormous demand for our products.”
Tan noted a recent announcement that Intel has joined Elon Musk’s companies in a project to make chips for AI, robotics and data centers in space.
Terafab, a manufacturing facility based near Austin, Texas, will aim to produce one terawatt of computing power per year, Musk said last month.
That is slightly less than the total power generation capacity of the United States, according to an industry group.
Musk said the project would be run jointly by his electric-vehicle firm Tesla and his rocket company SpaceX.
An “advanced technology fab” in Austin will have the facilities to design, manufacture, test and improve each chip, Musk said.
Musk did not give a timeline for the Terafab’s output, and has previously promised grand results from other projects on compressed time scales.
“Elon and I share a strong conviction that global semiconductor supply is not keeping pace with a rapid acceleration in demand,” Tan said on the call.
US soldier allegedly bet on Maduro operation using intel
By AFP
April 23, 2026
The 38-year-old soldier is suspected of making over $400,000 after placing bets on the prediction market Polymarket - Copyright AFP ANGELA WEISS
A US soldier faces charges for using classified information to bet on online prediction markets related to the US operation to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the Department of Justice said Thursday.
US Army soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, allegedly made over $400,000 by using the online platform Polymarket to bet on outcomes related to US forces arriving in Venezuela’s capital Caracas and deposing Maduro — an operation he helped plan and execute, according to justice officials.
The US military launched strikes on Caracas on January 3, arresting Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores and whisking them to New York to face drug trafficking charges.
“Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission…and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain,” Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.
Van Dyke faces one count of wire fraud, one count of an unlawful monetary transaction and three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act, according to the indictment.
The indictment marks the latest instance of insider information being used to bet on the actions of the second Trump administration.
Earlier in the year, six accounts on Polymarket made $1.2 million after betting that the United States would attack Iran on February 28, the day the war in the Middle East began.
No arrests have been made in connection with those bets, and so far there is no evidence US President Donald Trump or White House officials are linked to the transactions.
– Conflicts of interest –
Democratic lawmakers and other critics have accused Trump and his family of having conflicts of interest since the beginning of his second term.
In March, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform about “very productive” talks with Iran, sending oil prices downward and stocks surging — and people who placed the flurry of futures trades beforehand likely pocketed tens of millions of dollars, according to calculations by a market operator for AFP.
Members of the Trump family have also made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from cryptocurrencies, a market he has sought to deregulate.
And Trump’s son Donald Jr. is a partner at 1789 Capital, which made a multi-million investment in Polymarket last year, leading the prediction market to name him as a company adviser.
If Van Dyke, who used Polymarket to wager, is convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum sentence of 50 years in prison.
By AFP
April 23, 2026
The 38-year-old soldier is suspected of making over $400,000 after placing bets on the prediction market Polymarket - Copyright AFP ANGELA WEISS
A US soldier faces charges for using classified information to bet on online prediction markets related to the US operation to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the Department of Justice said Thursday.
US Army soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, allegedly made over $400,000 by using the online platform Polymarket to bet on outcomes related to US forces arriving in Venezuela’s capital Caracas and deposing Maduro — an operation he helped plan and execute, according to justice officials.
The US military launched strikes on Caracas on January 3, arresting Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores and whisking them to New York to face drug trafficking charges.
“Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission…and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain,” Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.
Van Dyke faces one count of wire fraud, one count of an unlawful monetary transaction and three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act, according to the indictment.
The indictment marks the latest instance of insider information being used to bet on the actions of the second Trump administration.
Earlier in the year, six accounts on Polymarket made $1.2 million after betting that the United States would attack Iran on February 28, the day the war in the Middle East began.
No arrests have been made in connection with those bets, and so far there is no evidence US President Donald Trump or White House officials are linked to the transactions.
– Conflicts of interest –
Democratic lawmakers and other critics have accused Trump and his family of having conflicts of interest since the beginning of his second term.
In March, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform about “very productive” talks with Iran, sending oil prices downward and stocks surging — and people who placed the flurry of futures trades beforehand likely pocketed tens of millions of dollars, according to calculations by a market operator for AFP.
Members of the Trump family have also made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from cryptocurrencies, a market he has sought to deregulate.
And Trump’s son Donald Jr. is a partner at 1789 Capital, which made a multi-million investment in Polymarket last year, leading the prediction market to name him as a company adviser.
If Van Dyke, who used Polymarket to wager, is convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum sentence of 50 years in prison.
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