Intel is continuing to invest more and more money in its chip manufacturing infrastructure. The company has announced new plans to invest over €33 billion - roughly $36 billion - to build or expand manufacturing facilities across the EU. That's just an early number - Intel says it could invest as much as €80 billion ($87 billion) over the next decade in Europe alone.

That sum of money includes multiple projects, the biggest of which is a plan for two new factories to be built in Magdeburg, Germany. Intel says planning for these new factories will begin immediately, and construction is planned to begin in the first half of 2023. Production is expected to start in 2027, well into what Intel calls the Amstrong era (one Amstrong is a tenth of a nanometer). Intel says this amounts to an initial investment of €17 billion, creating 7,000 construction jobs during the build and 3,000 permanent jobs at Intel after the factory goes online. Plus, it expects to indirectly create "tens of thousands" of jobs across suppliers and partners.

Intel also said it's investing to expand its facilities in Leixlip, Ireland. The company will invest an additional €12 billion to double the manufacturing space at this facility and bring the Intel 4 process to Europe.

Rounding out its manufacturing investments, Intel says it's considering investing up to €4.5 billion in a "back-end" manufacturing facility in Italy. This would create 1,500 jobs at Intel, though it's unclear exactly what would be manufactured in it. Intel says operations are expected to begin between 2025 and 2027. The company is still negotiating with Italy to work out the details of the investment.

Beyond manufacturing, Intel also wants to invest in R&D across Europe. The company wants to build a new R&D hub in Plateau de Saclay, France, creating a total of 1,00 high-tech jobs in the region, including 450 jobs available by the end of 2024. Intel also wants to establish its main European foundry design center in France, and the country will become Intel's headquarters for high-performance computing and AI design.

Finally, over in Gdansk, Poland, Intel is also expanding its lab space by 50% to increase its research capabilities in various areas including deep neural networks and graphics. The company is also expanding its partnerships with research institutes across Europe to accelerate innovation across a range of different fields.

The news comes just a couple months after Intel announced another huge investment of over $20 billion to build new factories in the state of Ohio. The company recently announced it would be focusing more on becoming a processor manufacturer powerhouse, rather than simply designing and building its own processors, and it's not wasting any time in making that shift happen.


Source: Intel