The US chipmaker Intel has announced plans to invest €33bn in manufacturing in Europe while also boosting research and development (R&D) functions across the region, the company said in a statement on March 15, 2022. 

This is the first phase of an investment campaign where Intel expects to invest €80bn in the continent’s semiconductor value chain, the company added.

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The investment programme is centred around strengthening Intel’s production capacities in Europe, creating a next-generation European chip ecosystem and addressing the need for a more balanced and resilient supply chain.

“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,” Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel, said in the statement. 

The starting point of these investment plans will be Magdeburg, Germany, which the company has dubbed ‘Silicon Junction’. Intel plans to invest €17bn in two chip manufacturing facilities in the city and expects this investment will create 3000 permanent high-tech jobs in the company, 7000 construction jobs and tens of thousands of job opportunities across suppliers and partners. The company expected construction in the first half of 2023, pending final approval by the European Commission. 

Intel will also be putting in an additional €12bn to the manufacturing space of its existing facilities in Leixlip, Ireland, the company said in the statement. 

In Italy, negotiations for the development of a state-of-the-art back-end manufacturing facility have begun. If they are successful, Italy will become the first country to launch this kind of facility in the EU, the company said.  

Investment in R&D and design

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Intel also announced that its new European R&D hub and main foundry design centre will be situated in Plateau de Saclay, France. The company will conduct enhancement of high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial Intelligence (AI) design in this city. 

In addition, the company will double its lab space in Gdańsk, Poland, with a focus on developing solutions in the fields of high-end technologies such as deep neural networks, audio, graphics, data centre and cloud computing by 2023.

The company also plans to upgrade its existing collaboration with Spain’s Barcelona Supercomputing Center.  

In line with the EU’s green transition targets, Intel plans to limit the environmental footprint of these new investments by cutting down the power consumption of its digital hardware and operating its manufacturing with renewable energy.