SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 15, 2022 – Intel today announ­ced the first pha­se of its plans to invest as much as 80 bil­li­on euros in the Euro­pean Uni­on over the next deca­de along the enti­re semi­con­duc­tor value chain – from rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment (R&D) to manu­fac­tu­ring to sta­te-of-the art pack­a­ging tech­no­lo­gies. Today’s announce­ment includes plans to invest an initi­al 17 bil­li­on euros into a lea­ding-edge semi­con­duc­tor fab mega-site in Ger­ma­ny, to crea­te a new R&D and design hub in France, and to invest in R&D, manu­fac­tu­ring and foundry ser­vices in Ire­land, Ita­ly, Pol­and and Spain. With this land­mark invest­ment, Intel plans to bring its most advan­ced tech­no­lo­gy to Euro­pe, crea­ting a next-gene­ra­ti­on Euro­pean chip eco­sys­tem and addres­sing the need for a more balan­ced and resi­li­ent sup­p­ly chain.

Pat Gel­sin­ger, CEO of Intel, said: “Our plan­ned invest­ments are a major step both for Intel and for Euro­pe. The EU Chips Act will empower pri­va­te com­pa­nies and govern­ments to work tog­e­ther to dra­sti­cal­ly advan­ce Europe’s posi­ti­on in the semi­con­duc­tor sec­tor. This broad initia­ti­ve will boost Europe’s R&D inno­va­ti­on and bring lea­ding-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.”

Expan­ding Lea­ding-Edge Manu­fac­tu­ring Capa­ci­ties for ‘Made in Euro­pe’ Chips

The invest­ment pro­gram is cen­te­red around balan­cing the glo­bal semi­con­duc­tor sup­p­ly chain with a major expan­si­on of Intel’s pro­duc­tion capa­ci­ties in Euro­pe. In the initi­al pha­se, Intel plans to deve­lop two first-of-their-kind semi­con­duc­tor fabs in Mag­de­burg, Ger­ma­ny, the capi­tal of Sax­o­ny-Anhalt. Plan­ning will start imme­dia­te­ly, with con­s­truc­tion expec­ted to begin in the first half of 2023 and pro­duc­tion plan­ned to come online in 2027, pen­ding Euro­pean Com­mis­si­on appr­oval. The new fabs are expec­ted to deli­ver chips using Intel’s most advan­ced, Ang­st­rom-era tran­sis­tor tech­no­lo­gies, ser­ving the needs of both foundry cus­to­mers and Intel for Euro­pe and glo­bal­ly as part of the company’s IDM (inte­gra­ted device manu­fac­tu­rer) 2.0 strategy.

At the cen­ter of Euro­pe and with top talent, superb infra­struc­tu­re and an exis­ting eco­sys­tem of sup­pli­ers and cus­to­mers, Ger­ma­ny is an ide­al place to estab­lish a new hub – a “Sili­con Junc­tion” – for advan­ced chip­ma­king. Intel plans to initi­al­ly invest 17 bil­li­on euros, crea­ting 7,000 con­s­truc­tion jobs over the cour­se of the build, 3,000 per­ma­nent high-tech jobs at Intel, and tens of thou­sands of addi­tio­nal jobs across sup­pli­ers and part­ners. Intel plans to refer to the new site as the Sili­con Junc­tion, con­nec­ting tech­no­lo­gy. This Sili­con Junc­tion will ser­ve as the con­nec­tion point for other cen­ters of inno­va­ti­on and manu­fac­tu­ring across the coun­try and region.

Intel is also con­ti­nuing to invest in its Leixlip, Ire­land, expan­si­on pro­ject, spen­ding an addi­tio­nal 12 bil­li­on euros and doubling the manu­fac­tu­ring space to bring Intel 4 pro­cess tech­no­lo­gy to Euro­pe and expand foundry ser­vices. Once com­ple­te, this expan­si­on will bring Intel’s total invest­ment in Ire­land to more than 30 bil­li­on euros.

In addi­ti­on, Intel and Ita­ly have ente­red into nego­tia­ti­ons to enable a sta­te-of-the-art back-end manu­fac­tu­ring faci­li­ty. With a poten­ti­al invest­ment of up to 4.5 bil­li­on euros, this fac­to­ry would crea­te appro­xi­m­ate­ly 1,500 Intel jobs plus an addi­tio­nal 3,500 jobs across sup­pli­ers and part­ners, with ope­ra­ti­ons to start bet­ween 2025 and 2027. Intel and Ita­ly aim to make this faci­li­ty a first of its kind in the EU with new and inno­va­ti­ve tech­no­lo­gies. This would be in addi­ti­on to the foundry inno­va­ti­on and growth oppor­tu­ni­ties Intel expects to pur­sue in Ita­ly based on its plan­ned acqui­si­ti­on of Tower Semi­con­duc­tor. Tower has a signi­fi­cant part­ner­ship with STMi­croelec­tro­nics, which has a fab in Agra­te Bri­anza, Italy. 

In total, Intel plans to spend more than 33 bil­li­on euros on the­se manu­fac­tu­ring invest­ments. By signi­fi­cant­ly incre­asing its manu­fac­tu­ring capa­ci­ties across the EU, Intel would lay the ground­work to bring various parts of the semi­con­duc­tor value chain clo­ser tog­e­ther and increase sup­p­ly chain resi­li­en­cy in Europe.

Streng­thening Europe’s World-Class Inno­va­ti­on Capabilities

R&D and design are cri­ti­cal to advan­ce lea­ding-edge semi­con­duc­tor manu­fac­tu­ring. Euro­pe is home to world-class uni­ver­si­ties, rese­arch insti­tu­tes, and lea­ding chip desi­gners and sup­pli­ers. Sup­port­ing this inno­va­ti­on clus­ter with addi­tio­nal invest­ments in R&D and lin­king them to Intel’s lea­ding-edge manu­fac­tu­ring plans will boost the cir­cle of inno­va­ti­on in Euro­pe, inclu­ding pro­vi­ding small and medi­um enter­pri­ses (SMEs) bet­ter access to cut­ting-edge technologies.

Around Pla­teau de Saclay, France, Intel plans to build its new Euro­pean R&D hub, crea­ting 1,000 new high-tech jobs at Intel, with 450 jobs available by the end of 2024. France will beco­me Intel’s Euro­pean head­quar­ters for high per­for­mance com­pu­ting (HPC) and arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence (AI) design capa­bi­li­ties. HPC and AI inno­va­ti­on will bene­fit a broad set of indus­try sec­tors, inclu­ding auto­mo­ti­ve, agri­cul­tu­re, cli­ma­te, drug dis­co­very, ener­gy, geno­mics, life sci­en­ces and secu­ri­ty – great­ly impro­ving the life of every European.

In addi­ti­on, Intel plans to estab­lish its main Euro­pean foundry design cen­ter in France, offe­ring design ser­vices and design col­la­te­rals to French, Euro­pean and world­wi­de indus­try part­ners and customers.

In Gdansk, Pol­and, Intel is incre­asing its lab space 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.

The­se invest­ments will fur­ther streng­then Intel’s long-stan­ding rela­ti­onships with Euro­pean rese­arch insti­tu­tes across the con­ti­nent, inclu­ding IMEC in Bel­gi­um, Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty Delft in the Net­her­lands, CEA-Leti in France and the Fraun­ho­fer Insti­tu­tes in Ger­ma­ny. Intel is also deve­lo­ping exci­ting part­ner­ships in Ita­ly with Leo­nar­do, INFN and CINECA to explo­re advan­ced new solu­ti­ons in HPC, memo­ry, soft­ware pro­gramming models, secu­ri­ty and cloud. 

Over the past deca­de in Spain, the Bar­ce­lo­na Super­com­pu­ting Cen­ter and Intel have been col­la­bo­ra­ting on exas­ca­le archi­tec­tu­re. Now, they are deve­lo­ping zet­tas­ca­le archi­tec­tu­re for the next deca­de. The super­com­pu­ting cen­ter and Intel plan to estab­lish joint labs in Bar­ce­lo­na to advan­ce computing.

Posi­ti­ve Spill­over Effects Across the EU

Intel’s ambi­tious Euro­pean invest­ment plans will have posi­ti­ve effects across indus­tries and mem­ber sta­tes. Buil­ding up manu­fac­tu­ring capa­ci­ties and R&D capa­bi­li­ties at this sca­le will crea­te a vir­tuous cycle of innovation.

Intel has been pre­sent in Euro­pe for more than 30 years and curr­ent­ly employs around 10,000 peo­p­le throug­hout the EU. In the past two years, Intel has spent more than 10 bil­li­on euros with Euro­pean sup­pli­ers. As Intel works to reba­lan­ce sili­con sup­p­ly glo­bal­ly, that spend is expec­ted to near­ly dou­ble by 2026.

Intel’s invest­ment plans will acce­le­ra­te lea­ding-edge chip design capa­bi­li­ties, boost the Euro­pean mate­ri­al and equip­ment sup­pli­er indus­try, and ser­ve the strong cus­to­mer base across indus­tries in Euro­pe. Addi­tio­nal­ly, the invest­ments would be a magnet for thou­sands of addi­tio­nal engi­neers and tech­ni­cal workers, gro­wing the pool of inno­va­tors, entre­pre­neurs and visio­na­ries that will advan­ce Europe’s digi­tal and green future.

Sup­port­ing Europe’s Green Transition 

A sta­te-of-the-art Euro­pean semi­con­duc­tor eco­sys­tem will sup­port the green tran­si­ti­on and help deli­ver the Euro­pean Green Deal. More effi­ci­ent chips can redu­ce the power con­sump­ti­on of the next wave of digi­tal hard­ware while dri­ving HPC and AI solu­ti­ons. In 2020, Intel out­lined its 2030 RISE stra­tegy and cor­po­ra­te respon­si­bi­li­ty goals to acce­le­ra­te the inte­gra­ti­on of respon­si­ble, inclu­si­ve and sus­tainable prac­ti­ces over this deca­de. In line with the EU’s cli­ma­te tar­gets, Intel is on track to achie­ve its 2030 sus­taina­bi­li­ty goals, inclu­ding achie­ving net posi­ti­ve water use by con­ser­ving, recy­cling and reclai­ming water, and fun­ding local water pro­jects that res­to­re more fresh water than it con­su­mes. In addi­ti­on, Intel will power its glo­bal manu­fac­tu­ring ope­ra­ti­ons with 100% rene­wa­ble ener­gy and achie­ve zero total was­te to landfills.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this press release that refer to future plans and expectations, including with respect to Intel’s manufacturing expansion and investment plans in the European Union (EU), are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Words such as “anticipates,” “expects,” “intends,” “goals,” “plans,” “believes,” “seeks,” “estimates,” “continues,” “may,” “will,” “would,” “on track,” “should,” “could,” and variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Statements that refer to or are based on estimates, forecasts, projections, uncertain events or assumptions, including statements relating to the anticipated benefits of Intel’s planned EU investments, including with respect to meeting future demand and future capacity expansion; anticipated supplier, ecosystem, community, and government support and approval for Intel’s planned EU investments and anticipated benefits related to such support; the proposed transaction between Intel and Tower Semiconductor (Tower), including statements regarding the benefits and the timing of the transaction, as well as statements regarding the companies’ products, customers, and markets; additional future site investments and the timing of such investments; anticipated construction and production timing for Intel’s planned factories; future products and technology and the availability and benefits of such products and technology, including future transistor technology; environmental plans for and benefits from Intel’s factories and technologies, including regarding energy use, water use, and waste; future external foundry business; plans and goals related to Intel’s foundry business; foundry service offerings; market opportunity; and anticipated trends in our businesses or the markets relevant to them, also identify forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on management’s expectations as of the date they were first made and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, among others, Intel’s failure to realize the anticipated benefits of its strategy, plans, and proposed transactions; construction delays or changes in plans due to business, economic, or other factors; increases in capital requirements and changes in capital investment plans; adverse changes in anticipated government incentives and associated approval related to Intel’s planned EU investments; adverse legislative or other government actions; insufficient ecosystem support; the risk that the proposed transaction with Tower may not be completed in a timely manner or at all; uncertainties as to the timing of the consummation of the Tower transaction and the potential failure to satisfy the conditions to the consummation of the transaction, including the receipt of certain governmental and regulatory approvals; demands in Tower customer end markets and for Tower foundry services and/or products that exceed Tower’s capacity; the impact of macroeconomic and geopolitical trends and events; and the factors set forth in Intel’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, including the company’s most recent reports on Forms 10‑K and 10‑Q, which may be obtained by visiting our Investor Relations website at www.intc.com or the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Intel does not undertake, and expressly disclaims any duty, to update any statement made in this press release, whether as a result of new information, new developments or otherwise, except to the extent that disclosure may be required by law.

About Intel

Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) is an indus­try lea­der, crea­ting world-chan­ging tech­no­lo­gy that enables glo­bal pro­gress and enri­ches lives. Inspi­red by Moore’s Law, we con­ti­nuous­ly work to advan­ce the design and manu­fac­tu­ring of semi­con­duc­tors to help address our cus­to­mers’ grea­test chal­lenges. By embed­ding intel­li­gence in the cloud, net­work, edge and every kind of com­pu­ting device, we unleash the poten­ti­al of data to trans­form busi­ness and socie­ty for the bet­ter. To learn more about Intel’s inno­va­tions, go to newsroom.intel.com and intel.com.

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