Jim Cramer Just Dumped Tech Stocks. He’s Loading Up on Intel Instead of Cerebras.

Quick Read

• Cramer chose INTC over CBRS, citing Intel’s $16 billion quarter as proof of a real AI turnaround. That result represented the company’s strongest revenue growth in 15 years.

• Cerebras posted 94% revenue growth but guides to operating margins of negative 31% and carries negative shareholders’ equity, undermining the bull case.

• Don’t wait: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just revealed his top 10 AI stocks. See the full list FREE now.

On Mad Money, a recent caller pressed Jim Cramer on Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ:CBRS) with a pointed setup: “Last week, CrowdStrike chose Cerebras to power their real-time Falcon AI detection. When George Kurtz vouches for your inference feed, isn’t it time to stop treating Cerebras like a post-IPO trade?”

Cramer conceded the valuation math. “It’s certainly reasonable to say it’s down so much and the P/E multiple is not that high,” he said. Then he redirected the money. “I don’t want to buy a lot of tech. The only one that I’m currently buying is Intel, which I think has better prospects than Cerebras. But I like your logic.”

That is a narrow, deliberate call. Cramer is holding his tech book steady and directing fresh capital toward the legacy incumbent, which he sees as the one AI semiconductor name earning it right now over the hyper-growth pure play.

Why Intel Is Cramer’s Pick

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) delivered the kind of quarter that supports Cramer’s conviction. Q2 FY2026 revenue landed at $16.13 billion, up 25.4% year over year, described by CEO Lip-Bu Tan as “strongest revenue growth in more than fifteen years.” Non-GAAP EPS of $0.42 beat the $0.2175 estimate by 93.1%, a swing from prior-year losses to real operating profit.

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The AI story is now on Intel’s income statement. The Data Center and AI segment posted $6.26 billion in revenue, up 59% year over year, and Intel Foundry grew 31% even as it absorbed a $2.1 billion quarterly operating loss. Tan framed the setup this way: “AI is driving unprecedented demand for compute, and as we continue to execute, Intel is well-positioned to capture sustainable growth across our CPU franchise, ASICs, advanced packaging and vast wafer foundry network.” The full release is available in Intel’s Q2 2026 8-K filing.

The stock has already run hard. INTC is up 148.43% year to date and 342.85% over the past year, closing at $91.67 on July 27 before slipping 5.69% on Tuesday. Forward P/E sits at 105, with the average analyst target at $115.65. Backing the turnaround: an NVIDIA $5 billion equity investment, SoftBank’s $2 billion stake, and a U.S. government equity position tied to CHIPS Act funding.

The Cerebras Case Cramer Won’t Take

Cerebras is the harder trade to justify on fundamentals despite genuine momentum. Q1 FY2026 revenue was $193.4 million, up 94% year over year, driven by a Cloud and Other Services segment that grew 178%. Yet the company posted a GAAP loss of $0.22 per share and carries negative shareholders’ equity of -$194.7 million.

Guidance is where the margin story gets uncomfortable. Management pointed Q2 core gross margin to 36-38%, with core operating margins of -30% to -32%. Full-year 2026 core revenue is guided to $855 million to $865 million. CEO Andrew Feldman’s framing remains aggressive: “Cerebras’ wafer-scale technology delivers the fastest AI in the world. And fast AI is more valuable than slow AI because it is more productive.” Details are in the company’s Q1 2026 8-K.

Cramer’s comment about the multiple has data behind it. CBRS closed at $188.61 on July 27, down 39.37% from its post-IPO peak of $311.07 on May 14. The $20 billion, 750MW OpenAI inference deal is real, and so is customer concentration risk. That is the fork Cramer is trading around.

What Investors Should Watch

Cramer is threading a specific needle: buying the profitable-turnaround AI beneficiary with government and NVIDIA backing while acknowledging Cerebras’s valuation reset. Reddit sentiment on INTC has skewed bearish to very bearish over the past 30 days, with retail investors flagging dot-com era valuations. That makes his call a contrarian one, anchored to Intel’s Q3 guide of $15.8 billion to $16.8 billion in revenue and non-GAAP EPS of $0.38. The next earnings report will tell investors whether the DCAI curve keeps bending up or whether Cerebras’s speed-of-inference pitch starts pulling incumbent CPU dollars.

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