Intel said the new factories will span nearly 1,000 acres in Licking County – about 49km outside the state capital of Columbus.
It said investment in the site could total as much as US$100 billion over the next decade, making this one of the world’s largest semiconductor-manufacturing sites.
“Our new megasite can accommodate a total of eight chip factories over its life,” Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said Friday at an event webcast from Ohio.
“Today we’re starting with the first two, with a clear intention to build more,” he said.
Construction is set to begin in late 2022, with production seen going onstream in 2025, Intel said.
The Ohio fabs will supplement the US chipmaker’s manufacturing facilities in Arizona, where Intel announced a US$20 billion investment last year to build two new chip factories.
Intel’s latest news comes as the Biden administration looks to strengthen US chip supply chains and China pursues semiconductor self-reliance. The global chip shortage plaguing automakers and electronics brands adds urgency to the effort.
“China is doing everything it can to take over the global market so they can try to outcompete the rest of us and have a lot of applications – including military applications,” US President Joe Biden said in Washington on Friday.
“Intel’s announcement today is a signal to China, and to the rest of the world, that from now on our essential manufactured products in this country will be made in the United States of America,” said Ohio Gov Mike DeWine, a Republican, at the Ohio event.
Biden, a Democrat, used Intel’s announcement to urge passage of the CHIPS Act, which includes US$52 billion for the US semiconductor industry but has stalled in the House since clearing the Senate last June.
“I want other cities and states to be able to make (an) announcement like the one … being made here today,” he said. “And that’s why I want to see Congress pass this bill right away and get it to my desk.”
Intel has been a leading advocate of the legislation, which would provide much-needed government support and financial incentives to compete with TSMC and Samsung.
“We’re building the site,” Gelsinger said at the Ohio event. “We’re getting started. But we need Congress to quickly and affirmatively act to finish CHIPS Act and get it funded, because I want the project to be bigger and faster as a result of the support of the CHIPS Act.”
Intel faces intensifying pressure as Asian rivals plan to pour billions more dollars into expanding their chipmaking capacities.
With Washington hoping to bring more semiconductor manufacturing onshore, Intel is pushing it to favour domestic companies over the likes of TSMC and Samsung.
Samsung announced in November that it would invest US$17 billion to build a new chip factory in Texas. That followed TSMC’s June announcement that it had begun construction on a US$12 billion chip plant in Arizona.
“We definitely believe there should be fabs of TSMC (and) Samsung being built in America, but we also believe the CHIPS Act should be preferential for US IP (intellectual property) and US companies like Intel,” Gelsinger said an online interview hosted by the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank on Jan 10.
The US company lost the semiconductor revenue crown to Samsung in 2021, according to American research firm Gartner.
The South Korean technology giant’s take surged 31.6% in 2021 to US$75.9 billion, Gartner said, while Intel fell to second place with growth of only 0.5% to US$73.1 billion.
Samsung has unveiled plans to invest more in the semiconductor business, including mergers and acquisitions, as it builds up its arsenal to better compete with rivals.
Meanwhile, TSMC announced last week a record capital budget of up to US$44 billion in 2022 with an eye toward expanding capacity, putting it on track to meet its plan of investing US$100 billion over the three years to 2023.
The world’s biggest contract chipmaker sank a record US$30 billion into capital spending for 2021.