Intel Surges on AI Chip Push; AMD, Salesforce Rally

Intel ($INTC) shares surged 12% in after-hours trading following a Q2 earnings beat, with EPS of $0.42 and revenue of $16.1B driven by record data center growth amid AI demand. CEO Lip-Bu Tan outlined the company's push into a $100 billion custom AI silicon market, announcing a $2 billion increase to its 2026 capital expenditure forecast and plans to access capital markets for additional funding.

Advanced Micro Devices ($AMD) gained traction after its Advancing AI 2026 event in San Francisco, where the company announced its Helios rack had entered full production and provided bullish projections for the AI server market. Futurum Equities raised its price target to $800, representing potential upside of 48%, while analyst Patrick Moorhead highlighted projections indicating the server CPU market could exceed $200 billion. $AMD positioned its chips as superior to offerings from Nvidia, Intel, and Arm in what analysts described as out-of-character bravado for the firm.

Broadcom ($AVGO) emerged at the center of a $35 billion AI financing package tied to Anthropic's custom chip orders, with Wall Street banks trading pieces of the funding structure that supports large-scale AI hardware projects. Qualcomm ($QCOM) saw its analyst fair value estimate shift from $168.50 to $221.23 following its Investor Day, where opinions split between enthusiasm for AI data center targets and caution around competition and handset demand risks.

Salesforce ($CRM) announced the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded the company a $1.6 billion, three-year Agentic Enterprise License Agreement through its distribution network. The VA intends to leverage Missionforce to modernize care and service delivery, aiming to provide more timely, consistent, and connected experiences for Veterans across the agency's operations.

ServiceNow ($NOW) delivered Q2 earnings results that validated its AI workflow positioning, countering market fears that AI agents would render workflow software obsolete. The Claude Portfolio X account, which runs a simulated AI-managed portfolio, maintained $NOW at 12% of holdings throughout a recent stock slide, reasoning that deployment and trust matter more than competitive technology narratives in enterprise software adoption cycles.

Alphabet ($GOOGL) passed Peter Lynch's Growth at a Reasonable Price screen with 29% EPS growth, a PEG ratio of 0.62, low debt levels, and high profitability metrics, according to ChartMill analysis. Separately, SpaceX delayed Starship Flight 13 due to weather conditions in Texas, affecting $GOOGL as an investor in the space venture.

Meta Platforms ($META) exited a major clean energy pact following significant investments in natural gas infrastructure over the past year, signaling a shift in its data center energy strategy as AI infrastructure demands accelerate. The move comes ahead of the company's earnings report, with analysts focused on AI infrastructure spending trends and their impact on capital allocation priorities.

Earnings season continues with Microsoft ($MSFT) and Meta ($META) reports on deck, where investors are focused on AI infrastructure investment projections for this year and next. The Alger Focus Equity Fund outperformed its benchmark in Q2 2026, led by AI infrastructure and storage holdings, reflecting continued institutional positioning toward AI-beneficiary equities. Market attention remains on how aggressive capital expenditure guidance from hyperscale cloud providers might affect semiconductor demand visibility and enterprise software adoption timelines through year-end.