Intel to get $3.5B infusion from U.S. gov't to make chips for military: Report

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/intel-to-get-dollar35-billion-from-us-govt-to-make-chips-for-military-report

by rbanffy • 2 years ago

31 23 2 years ago

Dear God, we just gave them $20B in cash up front, supposedly to build a foundry in Ohio that will never open because it cannot be staffed -- what is even going on here?

jfyi• 2 years ago

Sounds like exactly what's going on in Arizona with TSMC.

i3863• 2 years ago

Unions have already figured out that foreign workers will need to staff it and will make everything from construction to operations near impossible. Which is incredibly shortsighted - you need the job demand before you can create the training demand and the skills in the country to train them to make it feasible for Americans to work there.

brewdad• 2 years ago

Those foreign workers are already here in the US getting their educations. We can either incorporate their knowledge and skills into growing our industry here or we can send them back to their home countries to do it there.

Seems an obvious choice.

RobotToaster• 2 years ago

There's absolutely no reason American workers couldn't be trained, other than capitalists being too cheap to pay for training.

lulznews• 2 years ago

Same thing as always. Cash grab pols making it rain on their pals.

vsskanth• 2 years ago

Are there enough qualified people available to hire in the US for this? Unemployment rate for electrical engineers is very low.

Chip making is a highly specialized field where you need access to global talent. US work visa/immigration system is capricious and isn't easy to work with.

pie420• 2 years ago

There are way too many computer scientists coming out of the college pipeline, it'll be very easy for those engineers to pivot to the semiconductor field. Additionally, on the manufacturing side, semiconductors are in principle pretty similar to biotech and biologics pharma maufacturing (many discrete unit operation skids, cleanroom environment, lots of documentation, etc) and i'm seeing lots of automation and manufacturing companies pivoting to semi-conductors.

it won't be 100% efficient, but where the money goes, the talent will follow pretty quickly.

imbusy111• 2 years ago

AFAIK, salaries for electrical engineers are very low compared to software engineers so there isn't much interest in working on EE problems. Unless it's your passion and you're willing to give up a good salary.

Buraksr• 2 years ago

I think there are a lot of ECEs that work in software. A lot of my classmates from my EE undergrad went to software despite getting a more hardware centric education because software was offering more money.

I imagine there are many people people that, if they pay was higher, would move back to more 'pure' EE/ECE work.

renewiltord3• 2 years ago

It's a good question. Part of the reason TSMC's plant in Arizona can't get going is because local unions block them bringing over skilled personnel from Taiwan.

Longlius• 2 years ago

I'm assuming Intel took the contract because they already have the capacity to fulfill it.

recursivedoubts• 2 years ago

You have to start somewhere. If the US wants to get the supply chain back (which it foolishly gave away for a short term boost in corporate profits) it's gonna have to do what the economies that took the supply chain away did and start making public investments in it.

mateo1• 2 years ago

Honestly I feel like an idiot living in a country that pretends free trade is still a thing while other countries are building healthy productive industries with state interventionism. In 20 years half of europe will be industrially dead, yes, even more so than today. We won't even be making our own bricks.

siva7• 2 years ago

Why should we? Bricks will be built in low-cost countries. Tech and science will come from europe.

complianceowl• 2 years ago

It honestly doesn't make sense. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but sometimes the stupidity coming from both sides in government is so obvious I have to believe it is intentional.

It feels like our country is being prostituted economically -- foreign aid, welfare, corporate welfare, endless wars and foreign intervention, millions in earmarks to promote perverse ideologies, preventing municipalities from offering high-speed Internet as a utility despite ridiculously successful examples like Chattanooga, all to maintain Comcast's and AT&Ts monopoly on those services.

It's too much...

corimaith• 2 years ago

Mercantilist policies don't work when everyone is Mercantilist. I agree there needs a stronger policy of reciprocity in free trade states against mercantilist ones, but we are doing already in recent years. But if we all close our markets against each other, we can look forward to greatly reduced growth not just at home but everywhere.

renewiltord3• 2 years ago

Moving up the value chain. It's normal. Until international costs start evening out, exporting commodity manufacturing is normal. Lots of stuff coming from IMEC, and ASML's license of US EUV tech makes them pretty protected for next few years.

schmookeeg• 2 years ago

I hate how cynical I am, but this feels like abdication. "We can't compete, so we turned to Uncle Sugar for a lifeline" Surely it's an anti-signal? I used to hold INTC proudly and loved the Andy Grove era of that company.

Has Intel become a zombie company?

halJordan• 2 years ago

That is a little overly cynical, but from not knowing the whole story.

The dod has been trying to get away from IBM (!) since before they sold their fabs to glofo. Intel has in fact resisted making defense chips because they are not profitable like commercial endeavors. But the (dod's) need for advanced processes which only Intel has (in the us) and the funding from the chips act is finally enough.

Intel to get $3.5B infusion from U.S. gov't to make chips for military: Report

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