Intel picks Greater Columbus for $20 billion semiconductor factory to employ 3,000 workers

Intel has picked Greater Columbus for a new factory that could spark a new industry for the state.To get more latest news on intel, you can visit shine news official website.

The Silicon Valley semiconductor maker plans to invest $20 billion in a Licking County site that will employ 3,000 workers, a source close to the project told The Dispatch.The site also will employ thousands of construction workers along with workers from Intel suppliers that will locate at the site as well, the source said.

State and local officials, along with those from the state's economic development agency JobsOhio, have officially declined to comment, but rumors have been rampant for months of a massive economic development project that could include a computer-chip factory coming to 3,190 acres the city of New Albany is annexing from Jersey Township in western Licking County.The land would be for an expansion of the New Albany International Business Park where tech giants Google, Amazon and Facebook have data centers.

“I can’t confirm or announce economic development projects until they are finalized and I won’t address details in press reports speculating about the possibility of a major semiconductor manufacturing facility being built and operated in Ohio," Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement Tuesday.

Beyond the annexation agreement, "Anything else is speculation," New Albany spokesman Scott McAfee said.“Any potential announcement here could be terrific news, both for the country, as we become more competitive, and obviously especially terrific news for the state of Ohio,” Sen. Sherrod Brown said Friday.

Brown, a Democrat, said he's been working with the governor and fellow Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican, on a number of issues surrounding the project.

While Ohio has been a manufacturing powerhouse, it doesn't have any factories that make chips that are crucial to the U.S. economy.Manufacturers and policy makers have been eager to bring back production of semiconductor chips to the U.S. as a result of a global supply chain crunch during the pandemic.

Currently, 12% of the world's chips are made in the U.S., down from 37% in the 1990s, according to industry officials. About 80% are made in Asia.

Chips are an integrated circuit or small wafer of semiconductor material embedded with integrated circuitry. They are the brains in thousands of products such as cars, cell phones, appliances, gaming consoles and medical devices.As a result of the shortage, semiconductor companies have started the long process of developing new U.S. sources of chips. The process could take several years before the plants would be up and running.Intel has previously announced plans to invest $20 billion to expand its operations in Arizona, and CEO Pat Gelsinger said last summer that the company wants to create what would in essence be a mini-city that could see a total investment approaching $100 billion with multiple chip fabrication factories, called "fabs."

"This would be a very large site, so six to eight fab modules, and at each of those fab modules, between $10 and $15 billion. It's a project over the next decade on the order of $100 billion of capital, 10,000 direct jobs. 100,000 jobs are created as a result of those 10,000, by our experience. So, essentially, we want to build a little city," he told The Washington Post in August.