![An artist's rendering of the Licking County plants. They're expected to open in 2025. [Intel]](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/7e26b0f/2147483647/strip/true/crop/960x621+0+0/resize/840x544!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fimages%2Fnews%2Fnpr%2F2022%2F01%2F1074693769_865841918.jpg)
Updated: 6:12 p.m., Friday, Jan. 21, 2022
Intel plans to spend $20 billion to build two semiconductor chip factories in Licking County by 2025.
I am happy to confirm that my administration has been working closely with @Intel to bring its most advanced semiconductor manufacturing facilities in the world to Ohio. This new #IntelOhio partnership will transform our state! #BuiltForThis https://t.co/sWXk0rAfQP @LtGovHusted pic.twitter.com/5VBJtPGcGb
— Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) January 21, 2022
The two chip factories are expected to create 3,000 company jobs and 7,000 construction jobs, and to support tens of thousands of additional jobs for suppliers and partners. Construction is expected to begin in late next year, with production coming online at the end of 2025.
“This will be our first new manufacturing site in 40 years and spanning nearly a thousand acres will be a ‘mega-fab’ location that can accommodate a total of eight chip factories or ‘fabs,’ as we call them," Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said at a White House event Friday morning. "At full build-out, this site alone could grow to as much as $100 billion of total investment over the decade."
He called the Ohio project the "Silicon Heartland."
The factories are a part of the Biden administration's effort to bring the manufacturing of semiconductor chips back to the U.S. amid a global shortage of microprocessors used in everything from phones and cars to video games.
The U.S. share of the worldwide chip manufacturing market has declined from 37% in 1990 to 12% today, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, and shortages have become a potential risk.
The project will be the single largest private sector investment in Ohio history, Gelsinger said. It's the largest development project since Honda first came to the state in the early 1980s.
The DeWine administration had been talking with Intel for eight months about bringing the factories to Ohio.
This is a developing story that will be updated throughout the day.
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