Nvidia shares surge 4.8 percent toward first record close in six months after Intel earnings

Intel, the company Nvidia kicked out of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in November 2024, just handed Nvidia its best trading day in months.

Nvidia shares surged 4.8% to $209.18 Friday, leading the Dow even as the broader index slipped. The stock touched an intraday high of $210.95, its strongest level since November 2025.

If gains hold through close, Nvidia will secure its first record closing price in six months, with market cap back above $5 trillion and a $1 trillion lead over Alphabet. The catalyst came from an unlikely source.

Intel reported its third straight quarter beating revenue and earnings expectations Thursday evening, sending its own stock up roughly 20% Friday. Intel's data center business grew 22%, signaling that enterprise and cloud spending on AI infrastructure remains strong ahead of Nvidia's own earnings report next month.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan pointed to agentic AI as the demand driver during the earnings call.

"A shift from inference to agentic AI is significantly increasing the need for Intel's CPUs," Tan said.

That commentary carries direct implications for Nvidia. The company began selling standalone CPU products earlier this year, a move CEO Jensen Huang addressed at Nvidia's March conference.

"We never thought we will be selling CPUs standalone, but we are selling a lot of CPUs standalone," Huang said. "This will for sure be a multi-billion dollar business for us."

The rally rippled across semiconductors. AMD and Arm Holdings each gained roughly 14%. Qualcomm also posted double-digit gains. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index extended its winning streak to 18 consecutive sessions, one of the longest on record.

The irony of Nvidia riding Intel's coattails is hard to miss. Since replacing Intel in the Dow in late 2024, Intel shares have surged about 260% while Nvidia gained roughly 50%. But Friday showed both companies benefiting from a single macro read-through: AI infrastructure spending is accelerating, not slowing.

April marks a sharp reversal for Nvidia after a difficult first quarter. The stock fell 6.4% through March but has surged roughly 20% over the past month as semiconductor equities broadly recovered.

Nvidia traded at $209.56 Friday afternoon, up nearly 5% on the day.