The Biden administration is considering giving Intel Corp more than $10 billion in subsidies. A combination of loans and direct grants are probably part of Intel’s award package; negotiations are now in progress. Comments were refused by Intel and the U.S. Department of Commerce, which is in charge of allocating CHIPS Act monies.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo stated earlier this month that her agency intended to make multiple cash awards from the government’s $39 billion program to increase chip manufacturing within two months. The department has already announced two smaller Chips Act projects.
Laptops 1000The goal of the semiconductor fund is to finance the manufacturing of chips and associated supply chain expenditures; the grants will support the construction of new factories and an increase in output.
Together with a new location in Ohio that the Silicon Valley giant claims has the potential to become the largest chip plant in the world, Intel intends to invest tens of billions of dollars in chip plants at long-standing locations in Arizona and New Mexico.
However, a slump in the chip market and a delayed rollout of federal funding have caused Intel to postpone completion of the Ohio location until 2026, according to a Wall Street Journal report earlier this month.
The intentions of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, which has also filed for U.S. funding and whose chip factory under construction in Arizona has been postponed, whether a flood of federal cash this year might accelerate those plans again, is yet unknown.
In addition to building new chip plants in the United States, Micron and Samsung Electronics have applied to the program.
