Intel spent most of 2023 and 2024 as one of the most beaten-down chip stocks on Wall Street. Frank Lee, an HSBC semiconductor analyst, was among the skeptics. In late 2025 he had the company on reduce with a $24 price target and a straightforward message: time to bail out.
On July 2, Lee published a $200 target. That is not a typo. Lee doubled his price target on Intel ($INTC) from $100 to $200, keeping a buy rating he initiated in April, Investing.com reported. His new call sits roughly $100 above where the average analyst on Wall Street has Intel valued. It is the most bullish forecast for the stock among major banks.
Why Frank Lee just changed his mind about Intel Foundry
Lee was the first to tell you why he excluded Intel Foundry from his April model: external customers were not committed enough to assign a value. The foundry business is expensive to run and uncertain to fill. Three months later, he says enough has changed to bring it into the numbers.
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Customer engagement at Intel has picked up. Lee expects design commitments to start arriving in H2 2026. The companies building relationships with Intel’s foundry operation include Apple, Alphabet, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon, according to TipRanks. Intel’s EMIB advanced packaging technology is another part of the story. Lee thinks it can take market share from competing foundries that are running into capacity limits of their own.
His phrase for the opportunity he now sees: “too good to ignore.”
The server CPU story behind HSBC’s $200 Intel call
Foundry is not the only thing moving in Lee’s model. He also raised his server CPU growth forecasts for both 2026 and 2027, calling server CPUs the “key driver” of Intel’s earnings over the next two years. His 2027 data center and AI revenue estimate runs roughly 20% above Wall Street’s consensus for that year, which is where his overall target gets its distance from the pack.
The broader analyst community is not anywhere near Lee’s level on Intel. The stock carries a hold consensus. Mizuho has a neutral rating. Cantor Fitzgerald is at $150. The average target across the analysts tracking Intel sits around $101, according to TipRanks data. Lee’s $200 is double that.
That kind of gap between one analyst and consensus is uncommon in a large-cap name. It either reflects a view the market will eventually come around to, or it reflects assumptions that will get tested as Intel’s quarterly numbers arrive. Lee is not an outlier by accident. His Intel thesis has moved from reduce at $24, through a hold rating in early 2026, to buy at $95 in April, to buy at $200 in July, all in less than a year. Each step required him to update what he was willing to believe about Intel’s foundry ambitions. The July 2 step is the biggest yet.
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Intel stock’s 481% surge and what HSBC’s $200 target means next
Getting to $200 from where Intel was trading on July 2 would require another 62% gain in a stock that has already surged 481% over the past year. The Philadelphia semiconductor index gained about 94% in the first half of 2026. Intel ran roughly five times faster than that benchmark.
Intel’s recent financials gave Lee something to build on. Revenue beat estimates in the first quarter by a meaningful margin and the company is expected to turn profitable in 2026 for the first time in several years. Those results are part of what made Lee comfortable including Intel Foundry in his model after leaving it out in April. But InvestingPro data still flags the shares as potentially overvalued at current levels, a counterpoint worth keeping in mind.
The risk behind HSBC’s $200 Intel stock price target
Lee moved Intel Foundry from zero to a central part of his valuation in one step. His argument is that customer commitments are close enough to price in. If those commitments arrive on schedule, the model holds. If they slip, the jump from $100 to $200 loses its main support.
Intel Foundry is expensive. Customer acquisition in semiconductor manufacturing runs slower than most businesses expect. Lee knew this in April and left the foundry out for that reason. He changed his mind in July. Whether the external customers he expects in H2 2026 actually show up is the central question for anyone considering Intel at current prices on the back of this note.
Lee has a strong track record covering semiconductor stocks, with an average return well above 30% per recommendation. His April buy upgrade on Intel at $95 proved profitable within days. His new call at $200 takes the same thesis and adds the one piece of the business he previously said he could not value.
Related: Intel CEO gives investors a reality check
