By Piero Cingari
Publication Date: 2026-04-24 14:50:00
A 95-year-old Texas chipmaker better known for classroom calculators than silicon wafers for hyperscalers just posted its third-biggest single-day gain since going public.
• What’s going on TXN shares?
On a weekly basis, the stock is up more than 20% heading into Friday’s close, its best five-day stretch since December 2000.
The move is striking for two reasons. First, Texas Instruments had spent the past three years as the perennial laggard of the semiconductor complex.
Second, the catalyst is not what most investors would expect from a company with consumer brand recognition that still rests on the TI-83 graphing calculator sitting in every high school math classroom.
The catalyst is artificial intelligence infrastructure.
From Classroom Icon To Data Center Plumbing
For decades, Texas Instruments occupied a cultural niche few chipmakers ever achieve. Its calculators — the TI-30, TI-83, TI-84 — were standard issue in schools and universities across the U.S.
The broader…