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)
