The U.S. government said Wednesday it will provide up to $8.5 billion in direct funding to Intel Corp. to help it build and upgrade semiconductor production facilities.
The injection of funds to Intel through the CHIPS and Science Act is aimed at revitalizing the U.S. chip industry and reducing the country's dependence on technology produced in East Asia. The fund will be used for Intel projects in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon, according to the Commerce Department.
With the assistance, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the United States will aim to produce 20 percent of the world's cutting-edge chips by 2030 at home.
The grant is the single largest given to any CHIPS recipient, according to Raimondo.
"We can't just design chips, we have to make them in America," she told reporters before the announcement, adding that all together the projects are expected to create about 30,000 jobs.
"We don't make any of these chips and we rely on a very small number of factories in Asia for all of our most sophisticated chips. That's untenable and unacceptable. It's an economic security problem. It's a national security problem and we're going to change that," she said.
Currently, the United States churns out less than 10 percent of the world's chips and none of the most advanced ones, according to the government. Although chips were invented in the United States, they are now largely produced in Taiwan and countries such as China, Japan and South Korea.
Apart from the direct funding, the deal the administration of President Joe Biden has struck with Intel includes up to $11 billion in loans for the major U.S. company.
Biden signed the CHIPS act into law in August 2022, making available $52.7 billion in funding in an attempt to increase domestic chip output.
