Intel CEO Brian Krzanich held a press conference in the Oval Office to announce the company’s plan to invest $7 billion in its Fab 42 factory in Chandler, Arizona. Krzanich said Fab 42 will employ about 3,000 people in new, high-tech, high-paying jobs, while an estimated 10,000 additional jobs in the Chandler area will support the factory.
President Donald Trump said Krzanich wrote to him several weeks ago to ask for the press conference. Krzanich told reporters he wanted to make the announcement in the Oval Office “in support of the tax and regulatory policies that we see the administration pushing forward,” adding “regulatory and tax policies have disadvantaged us in the past relative to the competition we have across the world.”
Krzanich said the factory has been in the planning stages for some time, but Intel “held off doing the investment until now.”
Nonetheless, Intel has continued to be a major creator of U.S. jobs, particularly in Arizona and Oregon.
“Intel is very proud of the fact that the majority of our manufacturing is here in the U.S. and the majority or our research and development is here in the U.S., while over 80% of what we sell is sold outside the U.S.,” said Krzanich. “We’re consistently one of the top five exporters in the country and one of the top two research and development spenders in the U.S.”
The CEO noted Intel has accomplished this in spite of an unfavorable regulatory and tax environment.
Krzanich apparently decided to move forward with his plan to announce Intel’s expansion plans in the Oval Office, despite his opposition to the president’s attempts to restrict immigration through the “Trump travel ban.”
7 nanometer chips
Fab 42, which Intel has been planning for several years, will make “the most advanced 7 nanometer semiconductor chips on the planet,” Krzanich said. A 7-nanometer node process means the smallest spacing between repeated features on a chip along one direction is 7 nanometers. That means more transistors can fit onto each wafer. Right now the most advanced chips on the market are made using a 14 nanometer process. 7 nanometer processes will provide an estimated 35% speed improvement, use 65% less power and provide more density, according to analysts.
IBM is also working on a 7 nanometer chip, but Krzanich said Intel’s will be “the most powerful computer chips on the planet, powering the best computers, data centers, autonomous cars.”
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