Intel stock up 25% in last 5 days, on CPU demand as AI agents gain traction

Intel (INTC) stock has been on a roll over the last 5 days as the semiconductor industry continues to benefit from the AI boom, amid continued interest in agentic AI across the enterprise and consumer markets. Shares of Intel were up a staggering 25% over the last 5 days as of early Tuesday. Last week, CEO Lip-Bu Tan said during an appearance at the AI Infra Summit that central processing units (CPUs) are in high demand due to reinforcement learning, agentic AI, system-level orchestration, and their general-purpose usefulness. CPUs have become a critical component in AI data centers after initially being perceived as also-rans compared with graphics processing units (GPUs) that train and run AI models.