Intel stock surges 377% since Dow removal in November 2024, outpacing Nvidia's 46% gain since its addition to the index.

Intel was replaced by Nvidia in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in November 2024 after the chipmaker had lost 65% of its stock value since reaching a peak in 2000. Intel has since gained more than 240% year to date and about 377% since being removed from the Dow, bringing its market cap to more than $640 billion and making it the 15th most valuable S&P 500 component.

Intel's recovery is being driven by cost cuts, restructuring, new management, growth of Intel Foundry services, and key partnerships. The shift from AI training to AI inference (the step where an AI produces an answer) is increasing demand for central processing units (CPUs) and custom accelerators, areas where Intel holds a dominant server CPU market share and has secured a multi-year collaboration with Alphabet to deploy Intel Xeon processors and infrastructure processing units to power Google Cloud.

Despite Intel's gains, Nvidia remains worth eight times as much as Intel and is better positioned for future growth in physical AI applications such as robotics and self-driving cars. Analyst consensus estimates forecast Intel's earnings per share to surge to $1.53 in fiscal 2027, a 40.4% increase from fiscal 2026 full-year average estimates, though Intel is trading at 115 times forward earnings compared to 25.8 for Nvidia.