The centrepiece of Intel's five-year spending plan is turning empty fields near Columbus, Ohio, into what CEO Pat Gelsinger described to reporters as"the largest AI chip manufacturing site in the world" starting as soon as 2027.
Rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is also building a massive factory there that it hopes will receive funding from President Joe Biden's push to bring advanced semiconductor manufacturing back to the US. But Intel lost that manufacturing edge in the 2010s to TSMC and its profit margins plummeted as it cut prices to keep market share with inferior products.
Those tools will help bring the Ohio site online by 2027 or 2028, though Gelsinger warned the timeline could slip if the chip market takes a dive. Beyond grants and loans, Intel plans to make most of the purchases from its existing cash flows. However, even with the federal backing, Intel needs to show that it can compete with its Taiwanese and Korean rivals sooner rather than later, said Ben Bajarin, CEO of analyst firm Creative Strategies.