Pelosi, Cramer Back Intel as AI Chip Leader Over AMD

Investor Paul Pelosi disclosed a multi‑million‑dollar position in long‑dated call options on Intel, and television host Jim Cramer named Intel his top AI chip pick for 2026. The stock has gained about 220% so far this year.

Pelosi’s options position was made public recently and reflects a wager on Intel’s longer‑term share performance. Cramer announced his pick during regular market commentary. These developments come as the technology sector has seen volatile trading after Intel’s earlier rally.

Analysts note a structural difference between Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. Intel both designs processors and is building a contract manufacturing business called Intel Foundry. AMD follows a fabless model and relies largely on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. for chip production.

Intel has received federal subsidies and investment commitments from companies including Nvidia and SoftBank to expand U.S. manufacturing. The company is scaling advanced process technology, including work on an 18A node, at U.S. facilities.

Observers say hosting third‑party manufacturing domestically can create multi‑year revenue contracts that are not available to pure‑play chip designers. The industry is also shifting some focus from large‑scale model training to inference, where trained models execute tasks in real time. As enterprises deploy AI more broadly, high‑performance CPUs are used in many inference workloads.

Intel holds significant shares in server and PC CPU markets. The company has secured architecture wins, including configurations where Xeon processors support Nvidia hardware.

Intel shares fell about 8% in recent trading amid a broader technology selloff. Market participants attributed the drop mainly to quarter‑end institutional rebalancing and short‑term profit‑taking rather than new company‑specific developments. Some analysts described the pullback as a buying opportunity for longer‑term investors, while others warned that volatility could persist.

Cantor Fitzgerald raised its price target on Intel to $150 a share. Intel does not currently pay a dividend. AMD continues to focus on AI GPUs and outsources manufacturing, a model proponents say allows for lower capital expenditure and design flexibility. Historically, Intel combined chip design with on‑site fabrication, while AMD shifted to a fabless model in the last decade.