Intel continues to expand its European plans. Today it announced plans to use $4.6 billion (4.2 billion euros) to build a new facility in Poland.
The new complex in Wrocław is to house the construction and testing capabilities of Intel’s chips, Reuters reports. It would create thousands of new jobs, including 2,000 within the facility itself. Construction should be completed by 2027.
After plans for buildings in Germany, France and Ireland, this is the fourth time the chip giant has opted for a facility within the EU. Thus, European plans to ramp up chip production on its own continent seem to have widespread support from tech companies.
The new face of Intel
The Intel expansions coincide with a long series of changes in direction under CEO Pat Gelsinger. Since taking office in 2021, the company has discontinued many divisions, overhauled chip production and is doing a significant rebrand of its offerings.
Many factors go into this. Of course, Covid-19 has caused a considerable fluctuation in demand for desktops, chips and various other tech products. However, the competitive landscape around Intel is changing dramatically anyway. Since AMD has allowed its Ryzen chiplet design to mature, there is a formidable competitor again in the CPU market after Intel dominated for years. In addition, the influence of ARM architecture has only increased, so Intel will have felt compelled to make great strides again with x86.
In any case, it seems that Intel’s European factory projects are crucial to its new business strategy. After all, it is likewise going to let other parties bake chips in Intel fabs.
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