Intel will invest $94.7 billion to build chip fabs in Europe

[nanoguy]

The big picture: The global semiconductor shortage and the desire to create a stronger supply chain are pushing semiconductor giants to invest significant amounts of money in expanding to North America and Europe. Intel is no exception and is also motivated by an ambition to retake the leadership position in process technology.

On Tuesday, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger delivered his first keynote since stepping into office, closing the first day at the IAA Mobility event in Munich, Germany. During his presentation, he revealed the company has an ambitious plan to invest up to €80 billion ($94.7 billion) in building new chip plants in Europe, amid a global race to expand manufacturing capacity and reduce the industry's reliance on Asia for semiconductors.

The fund will be committed towards two chip fabs at a new site in Europe, and the investment will be spread over several years. The location of the site has not been decided yet, but Intel plans to eventually populate it with no less than eight manufacturing facilities.

To that end, Gelsinger has been engaging in discussions with officials and major customers in Germany, France, Belgium, Poland, and the Netherlands, and is expected to announce the location of the new manufacturing site by the end of the year. At the same time, Intel wants to start making chips for automakers using an existing plant in the company's Leixlip campus in County Kildare, Ireland.

There's a good reason for that, as Intel expects semiconductors to make up 20 percent of the bill of materials for new cars by the end of the decade, thanks to increased demand for premium and electric cars with advanced driver assistance technology.

Like rival TSMC, who is also looking to create a European arm, Intel Foundry Services will be looking for subsidies that politicians are offering from the EU's Recovery and Resilience Fund, which amount to $175 billion over the next decade. Gelsinger noted during his presentation that "you need us and we need you...The aim is to create a center of innovation in Europe."

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https://www.techspot.com/news/91145-intel-invest-947-billion-build-chip-fabs-europe.html

 

[Irata]

So the interesting thing would be knowing just how much sweet government money Intel will get from the US and European governments.

Also: There will be safe guards / clauses to ensure that Intel doesn‘t use any of these funds for some anti-competitive shenanigans.

 

[Beerfloat]

So far Gelsinger is saying all the right things.

We need to get away from our overreliance on two southeast Asian conflict zones for our global state of the art semiconductor manufacturing.

 

[Dimitriid]

So the interesting thing would be knowing just how much sweet government money Intel will get from the US and European governments.

Also: There will be safe guards / clauses to ensure that Intel doesn‘t use any of these funds for some anti-competitive shenanigans.

I fully expect not only for intel never having to pay taxes ever again but actually getting tax rebates from some of the EU based tax havens. But even that will probably be overlooked because of what I like to call Orientalism 2.0 that's going on right now, except instead of fearing Japan in the 80s there's intentional widespread fear about China.

 

[Achaios]

I intensely dislike Intel, I hold them totally responsible for the technological stagnation on the CPU sector we lived for so many years after Sandy Bridge but Chipzilla is our only hope for ending NGREEDIA's monopoly in the discreet GPU market since it is obvious and plain to everybody that AMD/ATI simply cannot compete.

 

[OortCloud]

The need to get away from a reliance on China for semi conductor manufacture can't be over-stressed. Sadly, given the current regime in China, and their appalling human rights record, the need to get away from all trade with them can't be over stressed.

 

[psycros]

I fully expect not only for intel never having to pay taxes ever again but actually getting tax rebates from some of the EU based tax havens. But even that will probably be overlooked because of what I like to call Orientalism 2.0 that's going on right now, except instead of fearing Japan in the 80s there's intentional widespread fear about China.

And by "intentional" you mean completely valid.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Intel isn't playing around.

So the interesting thing would be knowing just how much sweet government money Intel will get from the US and European governments.

Enough to make AMD jealous.

 

[hahahanoobs]

The need to get away from a reliance on China for semi conductor manufacture can't be over-stressed. Sadly, given the current regime in China, and their appalling human rights record, the need to get away from all trade with them can't be over stressed.

China?

 

[hahahanoobs]

I intensely dislike Intel, I hold them totally responsible for the technological stagnation on the CPU sector we lived for so many years after Sandy Bridge but Chipzilla is our only hope for ending NGREEDIA's monopoly in the discreet GPU market since it is obvious and plain to everybody that AMD/ATI simply cannot compete.

Ikr!
How dare Intel stumble getting 10nm out! How dare they milk 14nm until they could get back on their feet and on track again! They should have taken 5 years to start from scratch like AMD did, even though AMD's product stack was FAR worse!

Shame on you, Intel!

 

[Kosmoz]

I intensely dislike Intel, I hold them totally responsible for the technological stagnation on the CPU sector we lived for so many years after Sandy Bridge but Chipzilla is our only hope for ending NGREEDIA's monopoly in the discreet GPU market since it is obvious and plain to everybody that AMD/ATI simply cannot compete.

Agreed, only small correction/specification: AMD cannot compete with nvidia in terms of production capacity and scale, not hardware wise, because they proved this gen they can and RDNA3 might even beat Lovelace at everything.

But it's sad AMD cant/wont produce as much as nvidia on the GPU side, so they will remain small or get even smaller in GPU market-share.

This is the only reason I hope Intel Arc is decent at least, so that it's a 3 way war, which is better for all consumers - no matter what company you are a fan of...

 

[defaultluser]

I fully expect not only for intel never having to pay taxes ever again but actually getting tax rebates from some of the EU based tax havens. But even that will probably be overlooked because of what I like to call Orientalism 2.0 that's going on right now, except instead of fearing Japan in the 80s there's intentional widespread fear about China.

They already get that for having fabs in Ireland. I'm pretty sure that they will negotiate similar sweet deals with the rest of the EU countries getting these fabs.

 

[Dimitriid]

Agreed, only small correction/specification: AMD cannot compete with nvidia in terms of production capacity and scale, not hardware wise, because they proved this gen they can and RDNA3 might even beat Lovelace at everything.

But it's sad AMD cant/wont produce as much as nvidia on the GPU side, so they will remain small or get even smaller in GPU market-share.

This is the only reason I hope Intel Arc is decent at least, so that it's a 3 way war, which is better for all consumers - no matter what company you are a fan of...

Actually AMD could compete in production capacity and scale if it didn't also had to compete with Apple which we saw is an order of magnitude bigger customer than both AMD with the CPU and Console business or Nvidia.

This is something I believe we (as a community) are overlooking a bit: I feel as if all these companies: Nvidia, AMD, intel and even Microsoft are not really trying to capture the consumer market as aggressively as Apple is and for good reason: none of them has achieved a very closed, controlled and profitable ecosystem like Apple has.

At some point consumer electronics will just not be profitable and most of AMD, Nvidia and intel business will be to serve just data centers with cloud services filling in the void for AAA gaming. People really disagree with me when I make this claim but the consequences of such a long lasting supply constrain will be noticeable for years to come while the consumer division of this companies struggle.

 

[Beerfloat]

Agreed, only small correction/specification: AMD cannot compete with nvidia in terms of production capacity and scale, not hardware wise, because they proved this gen they can

Wut

 

[wiyosaya]

The need to get away from a reliance on China for semi conductor manufacture can't be over-stressed. Sadly, given the current regime in China, and their appalling human rights record, the need to get away from all trade with them can't be over stressed.

Off-topic - Personally, I don't think that trade with China, and all its human rights issues, is a problem that is easily solved. Speaking from the standpoint of working for a company that was hurt by the previous stable genius at the helm of US trade policies with China - hurt to the point of having to lay off highly skilled US based and employed production workers - I think the US needs to approach the problem differently - such as - give US companies sizeable tax breaks to employ workers in the US, or penalize companies for having product produced in China - other than with trade sanctions on China. US customers paid those tariffs imposed by the stable genius - not China.

The question I have for Intel is why are these additional fabs not being built in the US? As I see it, all Intel gives a about is profit and domination of markets. Let's see if Intel can actually come up with product that is truly superior, or that Intel does not charge potential clients of these fabs anti-competitive rates for their services. Intel has yet to prove that they give a and are a company that is actually worth employing their services. As I see it, it is more likely that Intel has some ulterior motive for this move.

 

[Adi6293]

Ikr!
How dare Intel stumble getting 10nm out! How dare they milk 14nm until they could get back on their feet and on track again! They should have taken 5 years to start from scratch like AMD did, even though AMD's product stack was FAR worse!

Shame on you, Intel!

I think he's talking about serving us with quad core CPU for 10 years.... They should have moved to 6 cores with 6th gen not 8th

 

[Porkous]

Should be near ‎Large Hadron Collider. So the bulk of science districts are closer to each other.

 

[Dimitrios]

I have to admit even though I hate INTEL I like this new CEO. Is he better than Lisa Su? Probably not since he's riding a company that has what Billions in profit to burn?

It's like claiming Phil Jackson is the reason why the Bulls won so many championships but the true reason was Jordan.

 

[gamerk2]

Off-topic - Personally, I don't think that trade with China, and all its human rights issues, is a problem that is easily solved. Speaking from the standpoint of working for a company that was hurt by the previous stable genius at the helm of US trade policies with China - hurt to the point of having to lay off highly skilled US based and employed production workers - I think the US needs to approach the problem differently - such as - give US companies sizeable tax breaks to employ workers in the US, or penalize companies for having product produced in China - other than with trade sanctions on China. US customers paid those tariffs imposed by the stable genius - not China.

The question I have for Intel is why are these additional fabs not being built in the US? As I see it, all Intel gives a about is profit and domination of markets. Let's see if Intel can actually come up with product that is truly superior, or that Intel does not charge potential clients of these fabs anti-competitive rates for their services. Intel has yet to prove that they give a and are a company that is actually worth employing their services. As I see it, it is more likely that Intel has some ulterior motive for this move.

What I would do is penalize companies that outsource production for re-importation into the US by tariffing *only* those re-imported goods. Unlike a blanket tariff, which as you noted will just result in raised prices across the board, this directly punishes companies that outsource production as a way to save a buck. [Note that outsourcing production to be closer to the point of sale would *not* be punished under this scheme].

I would also consider a law that forces all American companies to pay *all* it's employees the equivalent of the US Minimum Wage + benefits, which would remove any and all cost incentive for outsourcing in the first place. [Though obviously, enforcement would be an issue].

 

[cliffordcooley]

I intensely dislike Intel, I hold them totally responsible for the technological stagnation on the CPU sector we lived for so many years after Sandy Bridge

Lets see if I can get this straight. You hold Intel responsible for AMD not competing. You dislike Intel for tripping and allowing AMD the chance to finally compete. You are not optimistic about anything are you.

 

[bexwhitt]

I fully expect not only for intel never having to pay taxes ever again but actually getting tax rebates from some of the EU based tax havens. But even that will probably be overlooked because of what I like to call Orientalism 2.0 that's going on right now, except instead of fearing Japan in the 80s there's intentional widespread fear about China.

Making a dictatorial repressive regime have less power can only be a good thing.

 

[hahahanoobs]

I have to admit even though I hate INTEL I like this new CEO. Is he better than Lisa Su? Probably not since he's riding a company that has what Billions in profit to burn?

It's like claiming Phil Jackson is the reason why the Bulls won so many championships but the true reason was Jordan.

Jordan would disagree. And has.

 

[Dimitriid]

Making a dictatorial repressive regime have less power can only be a good thing.

For the people of China, indeed. However we know that's not the reason why they denounce them: it's just to benefit the oligarchy regimes of the west to have their domination unchallenged.