US considering more than $10 billion in subsidies for Intel, Bloomberg reports \ stacker news ~tech

More AI Cold War shenanigans.

The Biden administration is in talks to award more than $10 billion in subsidies to Intel Corp (INTC.O), opens new tab, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Negotiations are underway, and Intel's award package will likely include both loans and direct grants, according to the report.

The U.S. Department of Commerce, which oversees the disbursement of CHIPS Act funds, and Intel declined to comment.

The department has already announced two smaller Chips Act grants and U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said earlier this month that her department planned to make several funding awards within two months from the government's $39 billion program to boost semiconductor manufacturing.

The semiconductor fund is intended to subsidize chip production and related supply chain investments, and the awards will help build factories and increase production.

Intel plans to spend tens of billions of dollars to fund chip factories at longtime sites in Arizona and New Mexico, along with a new site in Ohio that the Silicon Valley company says could become the world's largest chip plant. But the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that Intel planned to delay completion of the Ohio site until 2026 due to a slowdown in the chip market and a slow rollout of federal dollars.

It remains unclear whether a wave of federal dollars this year would speed those plans back up, or the plans of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (2330.TW), opens new tab, which has also applied for U.S. funding and whose chip factory under construction in Arizona has been delayed.

Micron (MU.O), opens new tab and Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), opens new tab are also constructing new chip factories in the U.S. and have applied to the program.

1029 sats \ 2 replies \ @elvismercury 18 Feb

I read this with a different eye after having read Chip Wars -- the big chip companies have been spooning the government since the earliest days, using similar arguments the whole time. I know the standard argument will be "let the free market be free" and it's true, that will produce, globally, the best allocation of resources.

But if you're a nation-state, and you don't want the globally-best allocation to result in you having no foundries in your own country, how do you feel then? Or if you are entirely dependent on someone else, perhaps a hostile force, for your food or energy? An uneasy set of principles to hold in a practical world.