Intel announced on October 21, 2026 that it has installed the first major structural truss at its new chip manufacturing facility in New Albany, Ohio.
Provided by: Intel
Intel has reached a milestone in the construction of a massive chip manufacturing plant in New Albany, Ohio, but it is operating at least five years later than planned, a delay that has coincided with a surge in demand for advanced chips.
On Wednesday, Intel announced that crews installed the first major structural truss in Ohio. This means the next part of construction has finally begun.
“This represents another significant step toward expanding U.S. cutting-edge semiconductor production capacity,” Naga Chandrasekaran, Intel’s head of foundry, said in a post on the company’s website on Wednesday.
Intel still needs customers for its investment to pay off.
In September, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-bandwidth memory announced that SK Hynixmay partner with Intel in Ohio to lease some foundry space to manufacture memory chips at the new site. Neither company has confirmed their plans.
When Intel first announced it would build its Ohio factory in 2022, it was expected to begin shipping chips in 2025. Intel has pushed back that schedule and is now aiming for construction completion in 2030. A second Ohio plant is also scheduled to be completed in 2031 at a site just northeast of Columbus.
The delay reflects a major recalibration of Intel’s foundry ambitions under CEO Lip Vu Tan.
The Ohio factory is just one part of Intel’s ambitious buildout, begun under former CEO Pat Gelsinger, to begin manufacturing chips for external customers. When Tan took the helm in 2025, his turnaround strategy was more cautious, choosing to wait for customer demand before moving forward with ambitious chip manufacturing plans.
Still, by late 2025, Intel was ramping up mass production at its Arizona chip factory, producing cutting-edge 18A chips. Chandrasekaran also announced on Wednesday that its next plant in Arizona is scheduled to begin operations by the end of 2028.
But Intel has yet to land a major external customer for these 18A chips shipped from Arizona. Instead, Intel uses them to manufacture its own processors for devices.
Intel, once a dominant force in the chip manufacturing industry, suffered significant delays in the 7-nanometer and 10-nanometer nodes, resulting in 2024, the worst year in stock history. Since then, customers have been reluctant to recommit.
With record demand for AI, an opportunity may have arrived for Intel, as major chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is currently unable to produce chips fast enough. Even the largest chip manufacturers such as Nvidia, advanced micro device, apple and broadcomMizuho Securities analyst Jordan Klein said “competition is very intense” for space on TSMC’s factory lines.
TechInsights analyst Dan Hutchison said Intel could offer customers an alternative source of chip production.
“People want a second source of information that will give TSMC a twist and keep pricing honest,” Hutchison said. “All the big companies are testing there.”
WATCH: Inside Intel’s new Arizona factory, where the chipmaker’s fate hangs in the balance
