The American giant Intel has announced an initial investment of more than 33,000 million euros, which will reach 80,000 million in the next decade, to boost the production of microprocessors in the European Union. The decision includes the construction of a megafactory in Germany, as well as doubling the capacity of its facilities in Ireland, along with other projects in Ireland, Italy, France, Poland and Spain.
“Our planned investments are an important step for both Intel and Europe,” said Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel, for whom the EU chip legislation will empower private companies and governments to work together to drastically improve the Europe’s position in the semiconductor sector. “With the EU chip law, we want to make Europe a leader in the world production of semiconductors”, highlighted, for her part, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. “Our goal is to have 20% of the world’s microchip production in Europe by 2030. That’s double what it is today, in a market that will double in the next decade.”
This first phase includes the construction of two semiconductor factories in the German town of Magdeburg, whose work will begin in the first half of 2023 with the aim of starting operations in 2027. Intel plans to initially invest 17,000 million euros in construction of this production center. It will create 7,000 jobs during construction and another 3,000 permanent jobs after the work is completed.
The multinational also plans to continue investing in the expansion of its facilities in Leixlip, Ireland, where it will invest 12,000 million euros to double the manufacturing space and expand foundry services. Once completed, this expansion will bring Intel’s total investment in Ireland to more than $30 billion.
In addition, Intel has begun negotiations to set up another factory in Italy, with a planned investment of up to 4,500 million euros, which would create approximately 1,500 Intel jobs plus another 3,500 additional jobs between suppliers and partners, and whose operations will begin between 2025 and 2027.
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On the other hand, the American manufacturer plans to establish its new European R&D center in the French town of Plateau de Saclay, which will generate a thousand new highly qualified jobs, 450 of them already in 2024. In this way , France will become Intel’s European headquarters for high-performance computing and artificial intelligence (AI) design capabilities, whose innovation will benefit a broad set of industry sectors, including automotive, agriculture, climate, energy, genomics, life sciences and security. In addition, Intel plans to establish its main European foundry design center in France, offering design services and design guarantees to French, European and global industry partners and customers.
In Poland, the US firm plans to increase its lab space in Gdansk by 50%, with a focus on developing solutions in the fields of deep neural networks, audio, graphics, data center and cloud computing. The expansion is expected to be completed in 2023.
Laboratories in Barcelona
In Spain, Intel plans to establish joint laboratories with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. “This wide-ranging initiative will drive Europe’s R&D innovation and bring cutting-edge manufacturing to the region for the benefit of our customers and partners around the world. We are committed to playing an essential role in shaping Europe’s digital future for decades to come,” said Gelsinger.
Intel has been present in Europe for more than 30 years and currently employs around 10,000 people across the EU. In the past two years, Intel has spent more than €10 billion with European suppliers and that spending is expected to nearly double by 2026.
