Dell's $95 Billion AI Backlog Sends Wall Street Price Targets Soaring

Dell just posted the kind of quarter that makes analysts rip up their spreadsheets. Shares jumped as much as 10% after the company reported fiscal second-quarter results that blew past every estimate on Wall Street, driven by an AI server business that's growing faster than anyone modeled.

The numbers are stark. Revenue hit a record $47 billion, up 58% year-over-year, while adjusted earnings per share rocketed 203% to $7.04. That's not incremental growth — that's a business transformation happening in real time.

The engine behind it: Dell booked a record $60.9 billion in AI server orders during the quarter and exited with a $95 billion backlog. For context, that backlog alone is roughly double what some entire mid-cap tech companies are worth. Management responded by raising full-year revenue guidance from $167 billion to $192 billion and lifting adjusted EPS guidance from $17.90 to $25.50.

Wall Street didn't wait long to respond. Melius Research pushed its price target to a Street-high $735, more than 50% above where shares traded before results. BofA and Mizuho both moved to $600, Raymond James went to $617, and Evercore ISI increased its target to $575. Even Morgan Stanley, historically the most cautious voice on the stock, raised its target to $499.

"The momentum we've seen continues, and we are raising our expectations across every line of business." — David Kennedy, CFO, Dell Technologies

Here's the trade for retail investors: Dell (NYSE: DELL) is no longer just a PC and laptop maker riding a side hustle in servers. It's becoming a core AI infrastructure name, and the backlog gives unusual visibility into the next several quarters of revenue — the orders are already locked in, they just need to ship.

Traditional server and networking revenue grew 122% year-over-year, and storage climbed 26%, showing the AI buildout is lifting Dell's whole business, not just one product line. That diversification matters if you're worried about a single-theme bet.

Dell's AI-server revenue forecast for the fiscal year was raised to $74 billion, up sharply from prior guidance. The company is also tied directly into Nvidia's growth arc, since its systems run on Nvidia accelerators. Nvidia's own recent quarter, with $96.2 billion in revenue and guidance for $108 billion ahead, underscores just how much demand is flowing through the entire supply chain that Dell sits in.

The risk here is valuation and supply. Dell now trades around 18 times forward earnings, above peers like Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Super Micro, which means the market has already priced in a lot of future growth. DRAM, NAND, and CPU shortages remain a real constraint, and rising memory costs have already pushed up AI server prices industry-wide — a squeeze that could eventually pressure Dell's margins if it can't pass costs through to customers.

For anyone looking to add exposure, the entry question isn't whether AI server demand is real anymore — that debate is over. It's whether Dell can convert that $95 billion backlog into actual delivered revenue without stumbling on parts availability. Watch the next earnings call for backlog conversion commentary and any signs of component bottlenecks.

Dell's stock has already had an extraordinary run in 2026, so investors chasing the rally here should size positions with that in mind — a pullback on any broader tech wobble wouldn't erase the underlying fundamentals, but it could take some of this analyst enthusiasm down a notch first. Scaling into a position over a few weeks, rather than buying all at once at current levels, is one way to manage that risk.

Bottom line: Dell just proved AI infrastructure spending is broadening beyond chipmakers into the boxes and networking gear that hold those chips — and Wall Street is betting there's more room to run.