RBC Capital Markets initiated Dell Technologies with an outperform rating and a $640 price target on Friday, sending shares up 12% and extending a year-to-date gain of nearly 350% driven by surging AI server demand.
Dell Technologies shares climbed 12% on Friday after RBC Capital Markets initiated coverage of the computer maker with an outperform rating and a price target of $640, adding to a year-to-date gain that has already pushed the stock up nearly 350%.
RBC analyst David Paige cited the company's positioning within the AI infrastructure build-out as the central basis for the initiation. "With no signs of slowing, we believe DELL continues to be well positioned to benefit from a multi-year AI infrastructure spending cycle," Paige wrote in the note.
Dell has $95 billion in sales sitting in its server order backlog that it has not yet begun to fill, according to RBC. The company sold approximately $16.4 billion of AI servers in its second quarter alone.
The stock's climb in 2026 reflects Dell's emergence as one of the top suppliers of Nvidia-based servers and related equipment, products that cloud companies and enterprises are acquiring at a rapid pace to support artificial intelligence workloads.
Dell was among the first vendors to ship Nvidia's Grace Blackwell NVL72 racks, a distinction that underscores the company's close relationship with Nvidia and its ability to secure access to in-demand GPUs. The company also counts neocloud providers, including CoreWeave, among its customers.
Demand is spreading beyond GPU-based hardware as well. Storage revenue rose 26% in the most recent quarter, driven by AI-related needs, reinforcing the thesis that Dell can serve as a single-source supplier for companies standing up AI infrastructure. RBC characterized Dell's supply chain as "a competitive moat that differentiates the company during periods of supply disruption," with customers increasingly treating Dell as a steadying presence during periods of volatility.
Earlier this month, Dell reported second-quarter earnings that exceeded analyst estimates and raised its fiscal full-year revenue forecast to $192 billion — a figure the company said would represent a nearly 70% increase in sales over last year. Executives noted on the earnings call that prices are rising to account for higher costs for components such as memory.
President Donald Trump, who has purchased Dell shares since returning to office, again recommended buying Dell computers in July, a public endorsement that has attracted additional attention to the stock.
The breadth of Dell's AI-related revenue streams — spanning servers, storage, and supply-chain services — suggests that analyst interest in the stock is unlikely to fade quickly, even as the broader infrastructure spending cycle remains subject to shifts in enterprise capital allocation.
TechEchelon Staff bylines are produced collectively by the newsroom for short, breaking, and wire-style coverage. Longer-form reporting is published under the responsible reporter's name.
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