After experiencing relative stagnation in the early stages of the AI wave, chipmaker Intel is now entering a phase of recovery. Latest financial results show that the company achieved revenue of $13.6 billion in its first quarter this year, up 7 percent year over year—approximately 11 percentage points above market expectations—and saw its after-hours stock price rise as much as 20 percent immediately following the earnings release. Previously, Intel found itself at a disadvantage in the AI infrastructure race due to its inability to launch products competitive against Nvidia GPUs and because it lagged behind Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company in advanced process nodes. However, as AI applications have gradually shifted from foundational model training toward inference and agent-driven phases, demand for general-purpose computing capabilities has risen significantly, bringing renewed attention to Intel's core CPU product line. External factors also provided support. The U.S. government previously disclosed holding approximately 10 percent of Intel shares, while the company announced plans to join the TeraFab Project as a strategic partner alongside Tesla and SpaceX to advance a large-scale wafer fab project located in Austin, Texas. From a business structure perspective, data centers have become the primary growth engine. This segment generated quarterly revenue of $5.1 billion, substantially exceeding market forecasts, driven largely by surging demand for AI model training and deployment. Company management noted that the current ratio of CPUs to GPUs within server systems has improved from a previous 1:8 to 1:4, reflecting the growing importance of CPUs in AI inference and agent operations. Nevertheless, financial pressures persist. Intel reported a net loss of $3.7 billion for the quarter, primarily attributable to impairment charges on its stake in Mobileye and one-time costs related to government shareholding. Excluding these items, however, the company posted a net profit of $1.5 billion, outperforming prior market expectations. Looking ahead, Intel projects next-quarter revenue will fall between $13.8 billion and $14.8 billion, surpassing analysts' consensus estimates. Management stated that as AI evolves from foundational models toward inference and agent-based deployments, demand for CPUs, semiconductor manufacturing, and advanced packaging technologies will continue to grow, potentially securing Intel a more favorable position in the upcoming industrial cycle.