Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel.
Chipmaker Intel has reported a stronger-than-expected performance and key strategic milestones in its financial results for the third quarter of 2025.
The company posted net revenue of $13.7 billion, a 3% increase compared to the same period last year. The Client Computing Group led growth with revenue rising 5% to $8.5 billion, reflecting steady demand for PCs and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled devices.
The data centre and AI division saw a slight 1% decline to $4.1 billion, while Intel Foundry revenue dipped 2% to $4.2 billion amid ongoing investment in capacity expansion.
Revenue from other business units grew 3% to $1 billion, supported by continued momentum across emerging technology segments.
The once-dominant US company has been left trailing in the fast-growing AI chip market, after years of management missteps eroded its competitive-edge.
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“Our Q3 results reflect improved execution and steady progress against our strategic priorities,” says Lip-Bu Tan, Intel CEO.
“AI is accelerating demand for compute and creating attractive opportunities across our portfolio, including our core x86 platforms, new efforts in purpose-built ASICs and accelerators, and foundry services.”
The company says it generated $2.5 billion in cash from operations during the quarter. CFO David Zinsner notes that Intel made progress in bolstering its financial position through funding and strategic investments.
“We took meaningful steps this quarter to strengthen our balance sheet, including accelerated funding from the US government and investments by Nvidia and SoftBank Group that increase our operational flexibility and demonstrate the critical role we play in the ecosystem,” says Zinsner.
“Our stronger than expected Q3 results mark our fourth consecutive quarter of improved execution and reflect the underlying strength of our core markets. Current demand is outpacing supply, a trend we expect will persist into 2026.”
The results come after Intel announced several major developments during the quarter, including an agreement with the Trump administration for $8.9 billion in US government funding to support domestic technology and manufacturing expansion, with $5.7 billion already received.
The company also revealed a new collaboration with Nvidia to develop multiple generations of custom data centre and PC products, combining Intel’s CPU technologies with Nvidia’s AI and accelerated computing platforms.
Nvidia further deepened the partnership with a $5 billion investment in Intel’s common stock, while SoftBank Group invested $2 billion.
Intel says it continued to advance its product roadmap, unveiling its Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors (Panther Lake) built on Intel 18A technology, and showcasing the next-generation Intel Xeon 6+ (Clearwater Forest) server chips with significant performance and efficiency gains.
It also introduced a new inference-optimised GPU (Crescent Island) for enterprise and cloud AI workloads.
Further bolstering its US manufacturing footprint, Intel’s Fab 52 facility in Chandler, Arizona, became fully operational, producing Intel 18A wafers, which it says are the most advanced logic wafers manufactured domestically. The facility forms part of Intel’s $100 billion investment in expanding its US operations.
Intel also received $5.2 billion from the completion of the Altera stake sale and the divestment of part of its Mobileye holdings.
