Nearly $8bn awarded to Intel in move to support jobs in the US

26 Nov 2024

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The funding will be used to advance Intel’s commercial semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging projects in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon.

The Intel Corporation has been awarded nearly $7.865bn by the US government in an effort to boost chipmaking in the US.

It is hoped that the funding will help support 30,000 jobs across four different states, according to the US Department of Commerce.

The sizeable investment was awarded under the US government’s Chips Incentives Program’s Funding Opportunity for Commercial Fabrication Facilities.

Specifically, the aim of the funding is to advance Intel’s commercial semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging projects in the US states of Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon. The department said that Intel’s overall expansion plan in the US is estimated to support approximately 10,000 manufacturing jobs and 20,000 construction jobs across these four states.

The department added that it will disburse the funds based on Intel’s completion of project milestones.

The award will directly support Intel’s projected US investment of nearly $90bn by the end of the decade, which forms part of the tech giant’s overall $100bn-plus expansion plan.

US secretary of commerce, Gina Raimondo, said that the Chips programme will “supercharge American innovation and technology” and help make the country “more secure”.

White House deputy chief of staff, Natalie Quillian, added: “Today’s award marks another key step in implementing president [Joe] Biden’s Chips and Science Act and the Investing in America agenda to reshore manufacturing, create thousands of good-paying jobs, and strengthen our economy.”

Intel’s CEO, Pat Gelsinger, also had this to say about the latest deal: “With Intel 3 already in high-volume production and Intel 18A set to follow next year, leading-edge semiconductors are once again being made on American soil.”

He also said that his company is committed to advancing the US’ long-term economic growth and national security.

Earlier this year, Intel announced a multiyear deal to develop custom chips for Amazon Web Services.

The Chips programme has awarded more than $19bn of the more than $36bn in proposed incentives funding allocated to date.

Huge deals made

This latest investment marks another attempt by the US to boost its chipmaking market in recent months. Earlier this month, the US government awarded the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation $6.6bn in direct funding to support the company’s US unit, as part of its planned investment of $65bn in the US state of Arizona to build three facilities and create “tens of thousands” of jobs by 2030.

President Biden said at the time that this was the largest foreign direct investment in US history for a greenfield project.

Back in April, the US agreed to give up to $6.14bn in direct funding to Micron.

Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) is also making strides to improve its chipmaking market. Last year, the European Chips Act came into effect on 21 September, in an effort to help the EU rise up in the global semiconductor sector and protect its supply chain.

More recently, the EU announced that it would invest €133m in production facilities for photonic semiconductors in the Netherlands.

As for Ireland’s future in this growing sector, Dónal Travers of IDA Ireland spoke to SiliconRepublic.com last year about how Ireland could avail of this sector’s potential.

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Ciarán Mather is a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com