Intel has selected Ohio for a new chip manufacturing complex that would cost at least $20 billion, ramping up an effort to increase U.S. production of computer chips as users grapple with a lingering shortage of the vital components.Intel said on Friday that the new site near Columbus would initially have two chip factories and would directly employ 3,000 people, while creating 7,000 short-term construction jobs and tens of thousands of permanent positions at suppliers and partners.Patrick Gelsinger, who became Intel’s chief executive last year, has rapidly increased the company’s investments in manufacturing to help reduce U.S. reliance on foreign chip makers while lobbying Congress to pass incentives aimed at increasing domestic chip production. He said Intel hoped to invest as much as $100 billion over a decade to build up to eight factories on the Ohio campus, linking the scope and speed of that expansion to expected federal grants if Congress approves a spending package known as the CHIPS Act.
(It will be interesting to understand what this means for the employment of chemists and chemical engineers in Ohio!)
A chip plant handles some pretty corrosive/unstable/pyrophoric materials like chlorine trifluoride etc though I do not think this will create too many chemistry jobs directly at the chip plant. But the US built plant is likely to go with US suppliers so this will have some positive effect on US chemistry manufacture of these high purity and dangerous/unstable niche use chemicals
ReplyDeleteanonymous email speculation:
ReplyDelete"I'd guess that the addition of a new fab in the US doesn't do a ton for the Ph.D. level chemistry market on its own, because there really aren't a lot of Ph.D. jobs that involve actually operating in the fab. As near as I can tell from my own and the situation of other highly technical professionals across the company (I have a good friend who does chip level software for them) the intention is to keep the technical expertise in Hillsboro and Austin. [redacted] I do think Intel's push under the new CEO to try and "catch up" with AMD in terms of chip technology is already showing in their large number of openings at the Ph.D. level and aggressive hiring push. Of course, they hire from across the the sciences at the Ph.D. level, so in terms of what that means specifically for chemistry is anyone's guess. Probably at least a bit positive, I'd wager.
At the undergraduate level I'd guess this is probably good directly for chemistry hires as those folks often end up with more direct fab-level work, and as somebody mentioned in the comments there might be knock on effects for fine chemical suppliers in the space, but as near as I can tell CMC or whoever would be seeing that benefit regardless of plant location because there are only so many companies that make fab quality chemical components and Intel already has relationships with basically all of them."