Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. Photo: Horacio Villalobos - Corbis/Getty Images
Intel will open a new manufacturing mega-site near Columbus, Ohio, costing at least $20 billion, Time magazine first reported on Thursday night.
Why it matters: There's been a global chip shortage during the pandemic, which has impacted the manufacturing of products including vehicles and consumer electronics.
- Bulking up chip manufacturing in the United States is a key geopolitical strategy due to tensions between the U.S. and Chinese governments, and Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger last year announced a broad plan to reinvigorate the firm by doubling down on manufacturing.
- Intel plans to build at first build two semiconductor fabrication factories in New Albany that would employ at least 3,000 people at the site, per the New York Times.
The big picture: Gelsinger last year announced a broad plan to reinvigorate Intel by doubling down on manufacturing.
- He's been urging the U.S. government to help subsidize chip manufacturing, warning the current reliance on plants in Taiwan and South Korea as "geopolitically unstable," Axios' Ina Fried writes.
- The Biden administration has been pushing Congress to pass a $52 billion funding bill that would boost U.S. chip production. It passed in the Senate last June but has stalled in the House.
The bottom line: "Our expectation is that this [Ohio factory] becomes the largest silicon manufacturing location on the planet," Gelsinger told Time.