Intel said that while the company had not met the production goal it anticipated when the project was first announced in January 2022, “construction has been underway since breaking ground in late 2022 and we have not made any recent changes to our pace of construction or anticipated timelines,” according to a statement provided by William Moss, Intel’s senior director of corporate communications.
The company continued that it “is proud to be building in the Silicon Heartland,” remains “fully committed” to the project and is “continuing to make progress on the construction of the factory and supporting facilities this year.”
“As we said in our January 2022 site-selection announcement, the scope and pace of Intel’s expansion in Ohio may depend on various conditions,” Intel said. “We broke ground on Ohio One ahead of schedule and we are maintaining construction progress. Typical construction timelines for semiconductor manufacturing facilities are 3-5 years from groundbreaking, depending on a range of factors.”
The site, which has been referred to as Ohio’s biggest private sector investment, is 90 minutes from Dayton and about an hour from Springfield.
Intel told this news outlet it has hired more than 100 Ohioans, including some who are training at its locations in Arizona and Oregon. It currently has between 800 and 900 construction workers on the site in Ohio and expects to have several thousand by the end of the year.
More than 1.6 million work hours have been dedicated to the project so far according to Intel, including:
- pouring more than 32,000 cubic yards of concrete, enough to fill a stadium;
- installing 4,300 tons of rebar (approximately the same weight as 600 African elephants);
- installing 15,000 linear feet of underground pipe (almost 700 parking spots end to end);
- installing 210,000 linear feet of underground conduit (more than 700 football fields).
The Columbus Dispatch reported Thursday Intel hasn’t announced a new completion date, but the company said similar projects can take as long as five years.
Sources who spoke to the Wall Street Journal said the project isn’t expected to finish until late 2026.
The construction is expected to require 7,000 workers. The plant will eventually employ about 3,000 people with an average salary of $135,000, the company previously said.
Intel said plans to start operations in 2025 depend on market conditions and federal aid from the federal CHIPS Act, the Dispatch reported.
That act includes semiconductor manufacturing grants, research investments and an investment tax credit for chip manufacturing.
To land the project, Ohio offered the California-based chipmaker approximately $2 billion in incentives, including $600 million in an “onshoring incentive grant,” and $691 million as an infrastructure investment for the localities around the plants, for water and wastewater capacity upgrades, roadwork and a water reclamation facility. It also includes a 30-year tax break tied to a $650 million job creation tax credit.
Intel’s revised timeline for its semiconductor plant still keeps it within the boundaries of the deadline set by the millions of dollars in incentives it received from Ohio. Last June, the state finalized an onshoring agreement with Intel, one that will give it $300 million for the construction of each of the two chip factories, the Ohio Department of Development said then.
“Funds will be available for two years after construction begins on each facility, which must be completed by Dec. 31, 2028,” the Department of Development said.
Previous reporting from Staff Writer Thomas Gnau was included in this report.
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