Intel Corp plans to spend US$20 billion on a chipmaking hub on the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio, which the company expects to grow to be the world’s largest manufacturing site for silicon chips, a person familiar with its plans said.
The chipmaker is to begin construction of two fabrication plants on a 405 hectare site in New Albany, which it expects to be operational by 2025, the person said, asking not to be identified before a planned public announcement.
Time magazine reported the plans earlier, citing an interview with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who said that the company, based in Santa Clara, California, would use the location as a hub to research, develop and manufacture its most advanced chips, and would have the option to expand to 809 hectares and up to eight fabs.
Photo: Reuters
“We helped to establish the Silicon Valley,” Gelsinger told Time. “Now we’re going to do the Silicon Heartland.”
Intel’s leader has been vocal about the need to build more chip factories in the US and Europe, areas where manufacturing of the vital electronic components has declined precipitously.
Gelsinger has argued that a rebalancing of production is needed to reverse its increasing concentration in East Asia. He has pointed to the COVID-19-pandemic-induced supply chain crunch and increasing geopolitical tension between China and the US as evidence that Western governments need to find cash to persuade chipmakers to relocate.
Adding Ohio to its list of locations, not traditionally an area associated with the technology industry, adds to the greater geographical diversity that Gelsinger has championed.
Intel is also looking at sites in Germany, Italy and France for new factories, test and assembly plants, and research and design centers, Bloomberg has reported.
Putting some of Intel’s billions of dollars in capital expenditure to work in a new location for the company — it has plants in Arizona, New Mexico and Oregon — might help bolster Gelsinger’s appeal for taxpayer money.
That in turn would help cushion some of the drag on profitability caused by the company’s ambitious plans to restore Intel’s manufacturing prowess, and muscle in on the business of outsourced chipmaking, an area dominated by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co.
This year Intel’s CEO has budgeted a record amount of spending on new factories and equipment, but, highlighting the massive and growing cost of state-of-the-art chipmaking, TSMC and Samsung are planning to raise the stakes even higher.
TSMC has set aside more than US$40 billion for capital expenditures this year. That compares with Intel’s plan to spend up to US$28 billion.
South Korea’s Samsung would likely announce its plans on Thursday next week in its earnings release. Analysts, on average, predict a companywide budget of about US$36 billion.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to resume operations at two coal-fired power generators for three months to boost security of electricity supply as liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply risks are running high due to the Middle East conflict. The two coal-fired power generators are at Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). The plant, operated by Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), supplied electricity to Taipower’s power grid until the end of last year. Taipower’s decision came about one month after Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on March 10 said that the nation had no imminent
Some robotaxi passengers were left stranded in the middle of fast-moving traffic in a major Chinese city after their driverless vehicles stopped running, according to police and media reports on Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicates more than 100 robotaxis came to a halt because of a “system malfunction,” police in the city of Wuhan said in a statement, without elaborating. No injuries were reported. One passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped after turning a corner. An instruction on a screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes.” After no one showed up, the passenger pushed
RSS