The goal is to rebalance the global semiconductor market, which now sees more than 80% of production in Asia. And which instead, according to Intel, must be based not only in the United States but also and above all in Europe. An ambitious objective but which, after the inauguration of Fab 34 in Intel’s Irish factories, is increasingly concrete.
The company, led by Pat Gelsinger, a veteran who returned after twenty years at the helm of the Santa Clara company and redefined the commercial and technological strategy of the company that essentially invented the processor market as we know it today, he has in fact decided that Europe is at the center of his calculations. And if the discussion about opening a factory in Italy is still entrusted to commercial diplomacy and politics, Ireland has instead enjoyed for a few days a new jewel costing 7 billion dollars: the new Fab 34. It is part of a series of investments in Europe for 17 billion dollars and which also includes the other two “old” factories at the Leixlip hub, where the processing of the silicon wafers produced in the Magdeburg factory, in Germany, takes place, which will then be assembled and tested in the factory in Wroclaw, Poland, under construction.
The strategy is part of a true internal revolution set up by Gelsinger, who was called back to lead an Intel in economic and strategic difficulties in 2021 and who was able to quickly find a direction that analysts consider successful. At the base, the choice of a technology for the production of chips that Intel had left out: the use of technology made in Europe (made by the Dutch Asml, a spin-off of Philips) EUV, Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography, which is used to the first time in the Fab 34 of the Irish polo.
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The production technology for Meteor Lake
Extreme ultraviolet lithography allows us to start the mass production of chips on Intel 4 (and then Intel 3) nodes to prepare the new Intel Core Ultra with Meteor Lake architecture, the computer processors that will arrive in December and which allow “tile computing “, the new generation of Intel CPUs with an architecture composed of multiple “layers” with different functions. Among these, the specialized layer for the calculations necessary for artificial intelligence with low consumption is fundamental. A “piece” of technology that allows machine learning systems to be active locally on user devices without the need to send data to the cloud for processing. “Our whole life – said Pat Gelsinger – becomes digital. It’s “Siliconomy”. Everything runs on silicon: not only our economy but also life, free time. Semiconductors are fundamental and the Fab 34 production process it is fundamental to transforming the world.”
Artificial intelligence is destined to be part of our lives, but its engine is not just the algorithms and data needed to train it. The key element is computing power, i.e. processors, which so far have mainly been at the center, i.e. in the cloud and in large specialized computing centers. Instead, Intel’s move, like that of competing system manufacturers especially for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, goes in the opposite direction of bringing computing power to users’ computers, to the periphery. This will mean faster machine learning systems in responding and fewer privacy concerns because the data (the voice to be recognised, the images to be analysed) will no longer leave users’ devices.
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The 34 Intel factory
The inauguration of Fab 34, the first Intel processor factory with EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography) technology in the Irish center of Leixlip, is a scene of a wedding similar to the one that could (and perhaps still can) be created in Italy. Together with Gelsinger and the Intel executives who dealt with the project, the Irish Taoiseach (i.e. the equivalent of the prime minister) Leo Varadkar and the European commissioner for financial stability Mairead McGuinness, who is also a party partner, also participated. Varadkar’s Fine Gael.
An important scene not only for Intel’s strategy but also for the Irish one. Acting as the involuntary testimonial is Dermot Hargaden, general manager for the EMEA area (Europe, Middle East and Africa) of the company. Irish, born a few kilometers from the site where the Intel complex has stood for thirty years, he explained to us that as a boy he decided to study engineering and found work in Ireland thanks to the first Intel factory. “Otherwise – he says – like many before me I would have gone to work abroad: in the United Kingdom or in the United States“.
Intel, in fact, is part of a radical change in the Irish economy that has occurred over the last forty years. “Intel came to Ireland in 1989 – said Varadkar – when every year more than 70 thousand people, 2% of the population, left Ireland to find work elsewhere. Today the picture is very different: not only the Irish no longer go away, but many people come from all over Europe and all over the world to look for an opportunity here. And many Irish people also return home. Furthermore, we live in a time of incredible challenges, huge innovations, from artificial intelligence to robotics, and l ‘Ireland can and does have an important role in all this.”
The impact on the local economy
The creation of Fab 34, in addition to bringing new direct jobs, has created a real market of companies involved in its creation. There were 340 companies that participated, both newly formed and already present in the area. Small and medium-sized businesses have grown 50 times or more to produce the materials needed to build Fab 34. The Leixlip campus, where Fab 34 is based, has also seen a complete change in the way in which the sector is built and operated of semiconductors: alongside technical progress there is in fact an environmental effort: 100% of the electricity used on the campus and in the factories comes from renewable sources, 88% of the water is purified and returned to the River Liffey, waste is practically zeroed.
“The future is green and digital,” says Mairead McGuinness. He adds: “I was just over 10 years old when, 50 years ago, Ireland entered the EU. It was a very different country. Since then we have certainly remained Irish but at the same time everything has changed: we have moved forward a lot in terms of of social and economic development. Today Ireland and Europe are at the forefront not only in the production of new technologies, thanks to the partnership with Intel, but also in the ethical dimension with the Chip Act and the Data Act. We want to lead , regulate to give an ethical component to the technological revolution”. Because digital transformation is above all a political, social and cultural transformation as well as an economic and technological one.
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