Intel announces $5.7 billion AI-driven capital investment in Ireland

By Padraic Halpin

LEIXLIP, Ireland, July ‌13 (Reuters) - Intel ​has begun ​a €5 billion ($5.7 billion) capital investment to upgrade its Irish campus and expand its European output to meet growing global demand for AI ‌and high-performance computing, the U.S. chipmaker said on Monday.

Intel said the ⁠move would upgrade and maximize capacity at its facility in Leixlip outside Dublin that produces ‌Intel 3 silicon wafers, which ‌the company says is the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing facility of its kind in Europe.

It will also link the facility to other factories at the ​campus, Intel's European manufacturing base, as well as advance research and development and retrain staff, Naga Chandrasekaran, executive vice president of Intel Foundry, said.

Intel is ⁠one of the key multinationals in Ireland's foreign investment-focused economy, having already invested €30 billion in the country since ​1989, more than half of which was spent between 2019 and 2023 on the fabrication facility that doubled the available ​capacity in Ireland.

The leading-edge manufacturing equipment that Intel ‌has begun to install will help deliver Intel Xeon 6 processors and next-generation Intel Xeon built on the group's Intel ⁠3 manufacturing process, the company said.

"The demand for servers, the demand for AI is driving a significant increase in the need for Intel 3 wafers," Chandrasekaran told reporters.

Chandrasekaran said ⁠the investment would add "several hundred" more jobs to the 4,900 people Intel employs in Ireland.

The majority ​of the investment would be made by the end of 2027 and represents about 30% of Intel's $17 billion planned capital expenditure for 2026, he added.

Ireland is hugely reliant on the ‌taxes and jobs of foreign multinationals such as Intel. Foreign-owned firms have almost doubled their Irish workforce in the last ‌decade to make up 11% of the entire labour market.

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin ⁠said Intel's latest investment was ‌a powerful vote of confidence ​in Ireland and its position as a location for advanced manufacturing.

($1 = 0.8750 euros)

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Sarah Young and ‌Tomasz Janowski)

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