Dell Technologies (NYSE: DELL) booked $60.9bn in AI server orders during its fiscal second quarter, the company said in results covering the three months to 31 July 2026.
The order book pushed Dell’s AI server backlog to a record $95bn as it exited the quarter, according to Dell’s earnings statement. That backlog now exceeds a full year of AI-server revenue at the pace Dell delivered last quarter.
Orders outpace what Dell can ship
Dell recognised $16.4bn in AI server revenue during the quarter, the company said, well short of the $60.9bn booked in new orders. The gap points to a company taking in demand faster than it can convert it into shipped hardware.
Total revenue for the quarter reached $46.971bn, up from $29.776bn a year earlier, according to Dell’s 10-Q filing with the SEC. Diluted earnings per share came in at $6.34, against $1.70 in the same quarter last year, the filing shows. Net income for the period was $4.133bn, more than triple the $1.164bn Dell reported in the equivalent quarter a year earlier.
The scale of the jump stands out against Dell’s recent run of quarterly results. Revenue had held in a band of roughly $23bn to $30bn through fiscal 2026, before fiscal 2027’s first quarter brought a step-change to $43.842bn, according to figures in Dell’s own SEC filings. The second quarter’s $46.971bn extends that trajectory rather than reversing it.
Pipeline still growing, executive says
On the earnings call, a Dell executive pointed to $131.7bn in AI server bookings over the trailing four quarters and said the company’s five-quarter pipeline had grown sequentially, as first reported by The Motley Fool’s transcript of the call. Dell has also flagged supply constraints on components including DRAM and NAND memory, a factor that could shape how quickly the backlog converts into recognised revenue.
Shares in Dell surged on the results before easing back, according to Yahoo Finance. The stock last traded at $518.02, down 2.44% on the day but still up 19.12% over the preceding 20 sessions, according to consolidated exchange data. Trading volume ran at 58% of its 20-day average, with the shares as much as $561.65 and as low as $424.68 over that stretch.
Insider filings coincide with results
The earnings release landed the same week as a cluster of Form 4 filings from entities affiliated with Silver Lake Partners, Dell’s long-time private-equity sponsor, filed with the SEC on 9 and 10 September. Two Dell officers, Jane Tunnell and Jennifer D. Saavedra, also filed Form 4s on 9 September, according to EDGAR records.
Short-sale activity in Dell shares ticked up over the same period. FINRA’s daily short-volume ratio for the stock rose from 0.625 on 26 August to 0.663 on 9 September, according to FINRA data, a modest increase that ran alongside the earnings-driven share price swings rather than against them.
The results also arrive against a backdrop of elevated borrowing costs for capital-intensive infrastructure spending. The 10-year US Treasury yield stood near 4.8% as of 8 September, according to FRED data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, little changed from 4.78% a session earlier. That rate backdrop matters for a company building out AI server capacity on a scale that now runs into tens of billions of dollars in unfilled orders.
Dell’s next scheduled disclosure will be its fiscal third-quarter results, when investors can test whether the $95bn backlog has converted further into recognised AI server revenue, or whether component shortages have widened the gap between bookings and shipments.
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