Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) stock jumped 4.9% through noon ET Friday. Strange as it sounds, this was all because of Intel (NASDAQ: INTC)!

Intel blew past analyst forecasts for $0.01 in pro forma earnings last night, reporting $0.29 per share instead. Sales of $13.6 billion likewise beat expectations for $12.4 billion.

But why would semiconductor investors think this is good news for Nvidia?

With shares up 650% over the past three years, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence revolution. Nvidia’s GPU chips morphed into the standard as AI chips for powering large language models. In this race, Intel’s not even a distant second — it’s darn near the back of the pack — and not really something Nvidia investors worry about.

The bigger worry for Nvidia investors is that all good things must come to an end. Gigantic piles of money are being thrown out in the AI space to buy chips and build data centers — but precious little money is coming in from customers paying for AI services, with the result that most of Nvidia’s biggest customers these days are losing money.

Any hint from Intel that things might be slowing down would therefore be cause for concern. Instead, though, Intel announced last night that its sales grew 7% year over year in Q1, and are set to grow another 5% or so sequentially in Q2.

So basically, Intel’s results last night rang the all-clear for Nvidia — confirming that demand for AI chips remains robust heading into Nvidia’s own earnings report next month.

With a 41x P/E ratio and earnings growth projected at 40% over the next five years, investors are right to feel confident about Nvidia.

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