Intel weighs New York chip fab
Company considers sites amid federal push to shore up supply chain in U.S.
Intel, the world’s largest computer chip maker, says it is considering building a computer chip factory in New York state, joining both Samsung and Globalfoundries, who are also considering building new facilities here as part of a push by the U.S. government to bolster the domestic chip supply.
An Intel spokesman confirmed the company’s interest in New York on Tuesday, a day after Intel’s new CEO Pat Gelsinger spoke with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer of New York about the company’s new research partnership with Westchester-based IBM that would take place in Albany.
“Intel is considering New York state for future manufacturing facilities, along with several other potential locations,” Intel spokesman William Moss told the Times Union. “We appreciate the opportunity to speak to Sen. Schumer about New York’s talent and industrial base.”
It is unclear where Intel would want to build. There are four available upstate sites, including the 1,400-acre Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta, where Globalfoundries operates its Fab 8 chip plant.
Tom Roohan, who chairs the board that oversees the Luther Forest cam
pus, says that while he and his fellow board members are often not told by real estate consultants the identity of companies interested in the site, there is nothing stopping another large chipmaker from locating there even with Globalfoundries building a second potential fab.
“We do have some land left, and we’ve got space for other things to happen,” Roohan said.
Intel announced last week it plans to spend $20 billion to build two new factories in Arizona as it pushes to expand its manufacturing services to other chip companies. However, New York is being considered for what Intel calls its “next phase of capacity expansions” that will be revealed within the next year.
Globalfoundries wants to build a second fab next door to Fab 8 if it can secure federal financing through the Biden administration, which is offering chipmakers $37 billion in subsidies to invest in U.S. manufacturing and research.
The federal chip subsidy program, known as the CHIPS Act, has led many of the top chipmakers in the world to propose new factories in the United States, with New York being considered along with Texas and Arizona as the top chip manufacturing clusters in the country.
The CHIPS Act, which still requires funding approval from Congress, would also pay for a new federal semiconductor research center that New York state officials are hoping to land at the state’s Albany Nanotech complex on Fuller Road, which is home to SUNY Polytechnic Institute, IBM and other companies that use the shared clean-room facilities.
Intel and IBM’S new research partnership, announced last week, will use the Albany Nanotech facilities as well as Intel’s research center in Hillsboro, Oregon.
IBM has had a presence at Albany Nanotech for decades with hundreds of millions of dollars in support from New York state, allowing it to partner with other chipmakers from around the world, including most recently Samsung and now Intel, to share research costs on developing new chip technologies.
Officials in the Cuomo administration acknowledge that while the new CHIPS Act is going to produce a wave of new chip fabs built in the U.S., New York’s financial support of Albany Nanotech, IBM and SUNY Poly over the past two decades set the stage for Globalfoundries and now maybe other chipmakers to pick upstate New York for manufacturing, since such fabs are best located near their research operations.
Back in 2019, Gov. Andrew Cuomo pledged $300 million to a new IBM artificial intelligence research center based at Albany Nanotech, a key reason why Intel decided to join IBM in Albany.
Through its Empire State Development agency, the state has spent billions more attracting others in the chip industry to both Albany and other parts of upstate.
“We were excited to see IBM and Intel announce their unprecedented Albany-based research collaboration,” ESD spokeswoman Kristin Devoe said Tuesday. “While we cannot confirm or deny any conversations that we may be having with specific businesses, whether it’s with existing (research) partners like Samsung, and now Intel, we welcome discussions with any semiconductor company looking to take advantage of our existing depth of talent, the nation’s largest public university system, the array of existing semiconductor manufacturers and New York’s robust semiconductor supply chain.”
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the biggest rival to Globalfoundries, is also planning to build a fab in Arizona to take advantage of the U.S. subsidy program, which is designed to ensure the U.S. has a stable computer chip supply chain. The U.S. has increasingly been dependent on facilities in Asia, specifically China, for computer chips.
The U.S. military is especially worried that without adequate domestic chip manufacturing it won’t be able to control the supply or security of its chips used in weapons and equipment like tanks and airplanes. Globalfoundries has a major contract with the Department of Defense to make chips in the U.S., and that relationship is expected to expand, especially if Globalfoundries builds a second factory at Luther Forest.
Samsung, which is based in South Korea, does all of its U.S. manufacturing in Austin, Texas, where it has two chip factories, which are called “fabs” in the industry, short for fabrication facility. The company has announced plans to build a third U.S. fab that would cost $17 billion and employ 1,800 people, with Austin being its first choice.
However, Samsung is also hedging its bet that it will get the $1 billion-plus incentive package it wants from Texas, local governments and the school district, and so it is also courting New York state as a potential backup plan should negotiations fail.
“This project is highly competitive, and the company is looking at alternative sites in the U.S. including Arizona and New York, as well as abroad in Korea where Samsung Austin Semiconductor’s parent company is headquartered,” an application submitted to the Texas comptroller’s office states.
Schumer has lobbied for Samsung to locate at the so-called STAMP site in western New York between Rochester and Buffalo, where Plug Power in Latham is planning to build a $290 million hydrogen-production facility.
However, Schumer says that any of upstate New York’s four sites — the STAMP in Genesee County, Luther Forest in Saratoga County, the Marcy Nanocenter outside of Utica, or the White Pine Commerce Park outside of Syracuse — are good possibilities for Intel.
“An Intel fab in upstate New York would not only help shore up our domestic production of chips, but it also positions the company to take even more advantage of its partnership with IBM to develop and lead in nextgeneration semiconductor technology, a point I made to Intel’s CEO as they consider further building out their U.S. manufacturing operations in the year ahead,” Schumer said in a statement.
Intel is based in Santa Clara, Calif., but its U.S. fabs are located in Arizona, New Mexico and Oregon. Coincidentally, the organizers of Luther Forest, which straddles the towns of Malta and Stillwater, were originally courting Intel to become the first tenant at the site when Advanced Micro Devices came into the picture looking to build a new fab in 2006.
AMD later decided to spin off its manufacturing operation as Globalfoundries, which built Fab 8 a decade ago.