Citi (C) analyst Christopher Danely downgraded Intel (INTC) shares to Sell from Hold on Friday, following a rally in the stock.
Shares in the chipmaker surged Thursday on news of a partnership with AI bellwether Nvidia (NVDA). But Danley believes the pact, which sees Nvidia taking a $5 billion stake in Intel, isn't as helpful to Intel as it seems.
The deal also involves Nvidia using Intel's CPUs — central processing units, or traditional computer chips that are the “brain” of a computer — in its AI server systems. For its part, Intel will use Nvidia's AI tech in its CPUs for personal computers.
But Danely said his team of analysts “doubt this makes Intel CPUs more competitive” in the PC space.
This, he explained, is because integrating another company’s graphics — in this case, Nvidia's GPU “chiplets” — wouldn’t make a CPU more competitive. That's because the chip itself is the main performance driver for a personal computer.
As for Intel's deal to supply CPUs for Nvidia's AI server systems for data centers, Danely sees the market opportunity s “small,” at roughly $1 billion to $2 billion.
On Thursday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told journalists that he sees that very same market opportunity being $30 billion.
Danely also said:”We downgrade Intel from Neutral to Sell given our belief the stock is pricing in success in its leading-edge foundry business, which we believe has minimal chance to succeed.”
The partnership announcement critically failed to mention Intel's contract manufacturing (foundry) business, which has been driving losses at the company as it conducts mass layoffs and pauses factory plans.
Intel shares fell fractionally in premarket trading Friday.
