Intel vows $7b Arizona investment
san francisco — Intel chief executive officer Brian Krzanich said the semiconductor maker will invest $7 billion to complete a chip factory in Chandler, Arizona, becoming the latest company to use a meeting with President Donald Trump to tout spending and job-creation plans that were already in place.
Krzanich, speaking on Wednesday in the Oval Office, called the investment an expansion of Intel’s presence in Chandler that will finish a plant — already under construction — capable of advanced 7-nanometer chip production.
The Fab 42 facility will be completed in 3 to 4 years and create about 3,000 company jobs, Intel said in a statement following the meeting at the White House.
The chipmaker took a page from what has become a familiar playbook for technology and other companies: making a splashy announcement on investment and job additions after a high-profile huddle with Trump, who has threatened punishment for companies that shift operations overseas.
Intel already builds most of its products in the US, at facilities in Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico, and part of the spending will come out of the chipmaker’s previously disclosed budget for new plants of about $12 billion this year.
In December, IBM chief executive officer Ginni Rometty said she planned to hire about 25,000 people in the US and invest $1 billion over the next four years — an announcement made on the eve of a meeting of technology industry leaders with Trump.
The president, in the run-up to his inauguration, also sought credit for Sprint Inc’s commitment to create or bring back 5,000 jobs that the telecommunications company said are part of broader US hiring plans previously announced by Japan-based parent SoftBank Group.
The massive facilities required to make advanced semiconductors in an economically competitive way don’t require heavy staffing. Chip plants are among the most automated factories on the planet.
Their immense cost — more than $5 billion for a state-of-the art facility — comes from the expense of equipping them with that automation. Intel, like other chipmakers, typically locates its factories in areas where it can get tax breaks to offset some of the outlay. “We’ve been working on this factory for several years. We’ve held off actually on doing this investment until now,” Krzanich said from the Oval Office. “It’s really in support of the tax and regulatory policies that we see the administration pushing forward that really make it advantageous to do manufacturing in the US.”
The investment will also indirectly generate about 7,000 jobs in support of the facility, Intel said. The Chandler plant, when completed, will take its place among a worldwide network of Intel factories.