Intel CFO says data center and AI revenue could beat forecasts by nearly $10 billion

Demand for Intel's server chips is outrunning supply, even as the PC business and a fab disruption weigh on near-term guidance Intel has a problem most chipmakers would happily trade for: customers want more of its data center and AI products than it can make. CFO David Zinsner said that demand gap means revenue in the segment may beat forecasts by nearly $10 billion by year-end. The data center engine is running hot The comments follow Intel’s Q3 2026 earnings report, released on October 29, 2026. Its Data Center and AI (DCAI) segment brought in $7.3 billion in revenue during the quarter. That figure was up 78% year-over-year. It also marked the segment’s fastest growth rate in 15 years. The driver is Xeon, Intel’s line of server CPUs. Demand has climbed for chips built to handle AI infrastructure, particularly inference and agentic AI workloads. A quick translation for anyone not living inside a server rack. Training is when an AI model learns; inference is when it actually answers your questions. Agentic AI refers to systems that carry out multi-step tasks on their own, and both jobs need a lot of processing muscle sitting in data centers. Zinsner indicated that the strength in ...