Intel Rallies 12% as CPU Stocks Climb on AI Agent Demand

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up about 2%, helped by large gains in some AI stocks, while the S&P 500 rose 1.3%. Energy was the only negative sector in the S&P 500, after U.S. benchmark WTI crude fell more than 5% to roughly $95 a barrel and international standard Brent crude dropped about 4% to just below $100. President Donald Trump said he was open to discussions with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in New York this week at the UN General Assembly. The New York Times also reported that Trump had opted not to strike Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen, at least for now. CNBC said those developments raised hopes of cooling Middle East tensions and a possible reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Intel was the biggest mover, surging more than 13% to about $123 a share. The stock had risen more than 5% last week and was trading at levels last seen in early July. A clear trend appeared across semiconductors: CNBC described Monday as 'a CPU kind of day.' Advanced Micro Devices rose 9%, touching the $1 trillion market capitalization threshold, while Arm Holdings jumped more than 15%. Qualcomm, which is entering the data center market with an Arm-based CPU, gained more than 8%. By contrast, Nvidia and Broadcom, chipmakers not viewed as bets on CPU demand, rose a more muted 2% and 1%, respectively.

The renewed excitement for CPU stocks likely spilled over from buzz around Meta's Muse personal agent app, which lets users automate tasks such as booking appointments and responding to emails. After debuting on Sept. 8, Muse received rave reviews and vaulted to the No. 1 free app on Apple's App Store over the past few days, CNBC reported. Consumer adoption of agents has highlighted how agentic systems fuel demand for CPUs, which have been supply-constrained this year. CNBC said this was a big conversation in the spring and early summer, and Muse has put it front and center again.

"Up to this point, a lot of the agentic use cases have not been for normal people. It's been things like agentic coding. ... Now you've got Meta's Muse and other agents out there that are starting to get the potential for more broad-based adoption," Bernstein chip analyst Stacy Rasgon said on CNBC earlier Monday. "If you start to get the normies using agentic AI, using agents, it's being read as having the potential to put the CPU shortage and CPU demand into overdrive."

A traditional generative AI chatbot typically relies primarily on AI accelerators, such as Nvidia's graphics processing units and Google's tensor processing units, to generate responses. But agentic tasks usually involve many more steps to produce the desired output, which is where CPUs come into play, complementing the accelerators. CPUs are ideal for handling certain parts of the multi-step task, including planning what needs to be done, running code, and accessing tools like external databases. CNBC noted that Intel is also one of Jim Cramer's favorite ways to invest in the AI boom because of its third-party manufacturing and chip packaging business.

The rollout of Muse has also cast a positive halo on Meta's often-criticized AI ambitions. Meta shares were up 18% since the Sept. 8 close, including a nearly 9% jump on Monday, according to CNBC. In a piece for Club members on Sept. 9, CNBC made the case that Meta shares were cheap and still worth buying, in part because the market was just starting to give the company credit for its emerging AI prowess. The company has faced criticism for spending too much on AI computing and talent without a clear plan to monetize it, and the early success of Muse offered a clear counter to that critique.

Muse has two paid tiers, at $20 or $100 per month depending on usage, alongside a free option. Wells Fargo analysts wrote in a note to clients that usage stats for the Muse app and the Muse family of models will be in focus at Meta's annual developers conference this week. They raised their price target on the stock to $796 from $640 and reiterated their buy rating.