Dell Technologies stock surged about 9% in Wednesday pre-market trading after the company reported a record haul of AI server orders and lifted its outlook for the rest of fiscal 2027. The move drew attention from investors still debating whether AI hardware demand can continue to expand.

On the NYSE, the shares traded 9.25% higher at $463.62, recovering from a 6.80% decline the previous day, according to CNBC and Reuters.

Second-quarter figures

Dell's second-quarter profit reached $4.133 billion, up 255% from $1.164 billion a year earlier, with earnings per share of $6.34 versus $1.70. On an adjusted basis, the company earned $7.04 per share, equal to $4.591 billion, compared with $2.32 a share in Q2 2025. Revenue climbed 57.7% year over year to $46.971 billion.

The Infrastructure Solutions Group posted revenue of $31.78 billion, an 89% annual increase. The AI-Optimized server business also delivered strong growth, with revenue doubling to $16.401 billion as demand for AI infrastructure continued to accelerate. Traditional servers and networking grew 122%, and storage rose 26%. The consumer-facing Client Solutions unit, which sells PCs and laptops, added 20% to reach $15.03 billion.

Record AI server backlog

Dell said its AI server unit received approximately $60.9 billion in orders during the quarter and converted $16.4 billion of that amount into recognized revenue. The unit closed the period with a $95 billion backlog, a record for the business.

CFO David Kennedy credited the quarterly results as the company raised its targets. "Our advantages reinforce one another, and throughout the quarter we used these strengths to drive growth, share gains, profitability and cash generation," Kennedy said in the earnings release.

Dell is one of the largest vendors of the rack-scale, GPU-equipped servers used to build and expand AI data centers, a market in which it competes with rivals such as Super Micro Computer and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Its AI server order book therefore serves as a widely watched indicator of how much enterprises and cloud operators are spending on AI compute hardware.

Higher fiscal 2027 forecast

For the current third quarter, Dell guided to earnings per share of $6.10, a 168% year-over-year increase, with adjusted EPS of $6.50 and revenue of about $49.0 billion, up 81%.

The full-year outlook was revised more sharply. Fiscal 2027 earnings per share is now projected at $24.37, a 181% increase and well above the previous estimate of $17.31. Adjusted EPS was raised to $25.50 from $17.90, and full-year revenue guidance moved up to $192.0 billion from $167 billion, a 69% annual gain.

Dell now expects $74 billion in revenue for the year from AI-Optimized Servers, up from a prior $60.0 billion, representing 200% growth. Separately, Dell's board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.63 per share, payable on October 30 to shareholders of record as of October 20.

The results arrived in a market that has continued to question AI infrastructure spending and whether it has peaked. The documented backlog, worth tens of billions of dollars, along with a doubled server segment and a raised annual target, provides investors with a concrete data point rather than abstract forecasts.

Investors will now look ahead to the third-quarter results, due later in the fiscal year, to see whether the $95 billion backlog converts into revenue at the pace Dell now anticipates, and to commentary from the company on the pace of new AI orders relative to shipments.