This probably should have been better news than it was for chip stock Intel (INTC), as reports emerged it was setting up a new partnership with Graid Technology to push development of Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) technology. But investors did not take the news so kindly, and sent Intel stock sliding over 2% in Tuesday afternoon’s trading.
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The new partnership gives Graid the right to not only develop, but also market and sell Intel Virtual RAID on CPU worldwide. With this, reports note, development in the RAID space should improve and give data center customers access to some significant new tools. It will also likely help bolster Intel by giving it access to new revenue sources and customers, which Intel deeply needs right now. Since Graid also has the SupremeRAID lineup, which it will now be able to combine with Intel’s own systems, drawing in those new customers should be a fairly easy ask.
Graid’s CEO, Leander Yu, noted, “We’re proud to partner with Intel and carry forward the VROC legacy with fresh energy and vision…. The combination of Intel® VROC and SupremeRAID™ gives customers the ultimate choice-CPU-based or GPU-based RAID-both designed to unlock the full potential of their data for faster insights, greater productivity, and a stronger return on infrastructure investments.”
A New GPU, Too
Yesterday’s word about GPUs phasing out put the potential for a new opening or two in the market, and it seems like Intel has a follow-up ready to go. It is called Crescent Island, a GPU that boasts not only Xe3P architecture, but a hefty 160 gigabytes of memory. Crescent Island is specifically designed for the data center market, reports note, and was particularly geared toward inference workloads.
The new chip will be out sometime in 2026, reports noted. Perhaps best of all, Crescent Island will be “…power and cost optimized for air-cooled enterprise servers.” This suggests a clear target market ahead, and one Intel could, again, certainly use on its side right now.
Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on two Buys, 26 Holds and six Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 64.25% rally in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $27.67 per share implies 24.06% downside risk.
