Intel shares surge after report ties Google to more than 3 million TPUs on Intel manufacturing plans for 2028

Intel shares rose about 12% in the afternoon after The Information, as reported by Yahoo Finance, said Google placed a firm order for more than 3 million tensor processing units, or TPUs, for manufacture by Intel in 2028. TPUs are specialized chips designed to accelerate machine-learning and artificial intelligence workloads, and demand from major AI customers can be a proving ground for a chipmaker’s manufacturing capability.

The reported order is framed as a step beyond a small pilot because it is described as a commitment tied to a specific future year. The same reporting also connects the deal to longer-running evaluation work, including testing related to Intel’s packaging technology, which is the set of steps used to assemble and integrate chips and memory into a sellable system.

In a broader market read of the development, The Globe and Mail said the Google order appears to be among the clearest external validations of Intel’s foundry turnaround in years. Foundry, in this context, refers to Intel manufacturing chips for other companies, not just for its own products. The report also suggested Morgan Stanley’s estimate that build-outs around 2027 and 2028 could total 6 million or more TPUs across those years, though that figure was attributed to the bank’s modeling rather than to Intel.

The same piece said Nvidia is running early trials on Intel’s most advanced 18A process for Nvidia’s next-generation “Feynman” GPU architecture, but it characterized that angle as unconfirmed. Intel’s 18A process is the company’s planned manufacturing node, described in the market coverage as a 1.8-nanometer class technology, intended to improve density and performance versus earlier generations. If outside customers are willing to test or place orders on that node, it can strengthen confidence in Intel’s ability to compete with leaders in contract manufacturing.

Intel’s market narrative has been helped by signs of improving demand and execution in its semiconductor operations. The Globe and Mail reported that Intel’s foundry revenue grew 16% year over year in its most recent quarter and that the company has posted six consecutive revenue beats. Separately, while specific program names were not detailed in the market snippets provided, the reporting said the setup reflects a changing competitive landscape, including concerns about capacity at other leading manufacturers.

Even with the bullish reaction, the disclosures remain limited. Intel has not been quoted in the material provided, and the firms’ exact contract terms, shipment schedules, pricing, and whether any of the Nvidia process work will translate into a confirmed production commitment were not laid out. The Nvidia “trial” claim also appears dependent on the same reporting chain and was described as potentially larger but still not verified.

Investors will likely watch whether Intel provides additional details in upcoming earnings updates about foundry customer conversion, specifically how many customers are moving from testing into volume production on new process nodes and packaging approaches. For Google, markets will also be attentive to whether the order becomes a repeatable pattern for future AI accelerators, which would further test Intel’s ability to scale advanced manufacturing on schedule.