Intel plans to spend $7B to complete closed plant
Company’s pivot away from PC market could create 3,000 jobs when it opens
Intel CEO Brian Kraznich stood next to President Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday to announce the chip maker would spend $7 billion to complete a mothballed plant in Chandler, Ariz.
The opening of the plant is part of Intel’s overall pivot away from the PC market, which has taken place over the past few years and is beginning to pay dividends.
Fabrication plant 42 will produce microprocessors and will take between three and four years to come online, creating approximately 3,000 high-tech, high-wage jobs when it opens, Kraznich said.
“It will be the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing plant on the planet,” said Stacy Smith, Intel’s head of sales and manufacturing.
Intel originally built the plant in 2011-12, when it spent $5 billion on the facility, but then made the decision not to complete it because of shifts in the semiconductor industry as the public turned away from PCs toward tablets and smartphones. Shipments of PCs dropped 5.7% in 2016, according to IDC.
Since then Intel has rebounded by pivoting to focus on the needs of cloud-computing facilities and devices. Intel already has two other factories in Arizona.
“Intel is very proud of the fact that a majority of our manufacturing is here in the U.S., and the majority of our research and development is here in the U.S., while over 80% of what we sell is sold outside of the U.S.,” Kraznich said at the White House.
The investments needed to create new chips is “enormous, so we have to start now in order to intercept demand that’s a few years out,” Smith said.
Intel has made chips for personal computers in Chandler since the 1980s. It is the No. 1 private employer in Arizona, Kraznich said.