LIVE MARKETS-Nvidia set to give Intel its biggest lift in decades

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NVIDIA SET TO GIVE INTEL ITS BIGGEST LIFT IN DECADES
Nvidia's NVDA.O $5 billion bet on struggling chipmaker Intel INTC.O is dominating premarket headlines, with Intel shares soaring 29% and on track to hit its highest price in more than a year.
The deal adds to a growing reserve of capital that Intel has accumulated weeks after it announced a $2 billion investment from Softbank 9984.T and received $5.7 billion from the U.S. government.
"Intel needed a partner and Nvidia is the best partner for a company where investors are mostly in doubt about the future and the company's ability to get back on the seat having lost the AI turn," said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank.
As part of the tie-up, Nvidia and Intel plan to jointly develop new custom data center and PC chips that "will accelerate applications and workloads across hyperscale, enterprise, and consumer markets," according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.
The news lifted semiconductor stocks across the U.S. and Europe, with the VanEck Semiconductor ETF SMH.O up 3.1% in premarket trading. But Taiwan's TSMC ADRs 2330.TW, which currently manufactures Nvidia's flagship processors fell 2.8%, while Intel rival AMD AMD.O dropped 4.3%.
Once the chip industry's flagbearer that claimed to put the "silicon" in Silicon Valley, Intel recorded an annual loss of $18.8 billion in 2024, its first such loss since 1986, after former CEO Pat Gelsinger poured billions into expanding its loss-making contract-manufacturing business.
New CEO Lip-Bu Tan is streamlining operations and making management changes to strengthen the company's finances.
If Intel can sustain its premarket rally through Thursday's session, it would mark its sharpest one-day gain since at least 1980, the earliest year for which LSEG data is available.
Meanwhile, futures signaled a strong open for U.S. equities, with tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 NQcv1 contracts up about 1%, outperforming S&P 500 EScv1 and Dow Y1Cv1 futures.

Here's a look at the premarket snapshot as of 8:41 a.m. ET:

(Medha Singh, Purvi Agarwal)

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