Intel has pledged €5bn of investment into its Ireland campus, marking another step in its growth plan 11 months after the US government took a 10 per cent equity stake in the company.
The American chipmaker unveiled the expansion of its Leixlip plant on July 13 in a bid to meet rising demand for AI and high-performance computing chips.
The investment, which accounts for roughly 30 per cent of Intel’s planned $17bn capital expenditure for 2026, will maximise capacity for Intel 3 silicon wafers which it describes as the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing process in Europe.
“[This is] a definitive commitment to maximise capacity at our Leixlip campus”, said Naga Chandrasekaran, executive vice-president and chief technology and operations officer at Intel Foundry, in a statement.
Most of the spending will be deployed by the end of 2027, and the project is expected to add several hundred jobs to the site’s existing 4,900-strong workforce. Intel has invested more than €30bn in Ireland since establishing operations there in 1989.
The decision to double down on Ireland contrasts with its other investment bets in recent years. Former CEO Pat Gelsinger oversaw close to $90bn in global greenfield investment during his tenure, fDi Markets data shows, including a $20bn-plus mega-site near Columbus, Ohio, that he once billed as capable of growing to $100bn.
But by mid-2024 Intel was pausing expansions in Israel, then Poland and Germany, as it sought $10bn in savings. It also shelved a €4.5bn Italian plant after posting roughly $7bn in foundry losses.
That retrenchment culminated in Gelsinger’s ousting in December 2024, when the board lost confidence in the investment-led turnaround he had staked his tenure on. Last year the firm announced it was shedding 25,000 roles globally to help improve efficiencies as it struggled to compete against the likes of Nvidia and TSMC.
Against that backdrop, Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin called the investment “a powerful vote of confidence” in the country’s position “at the heart of Europe’s most advanced manufacturing ecosystem.” Michael Lohan, CEO of IDA Ireland, the government agency responsible for the attraction and retention of foreign direct investment into Ireland, added that the project “reinforces Ireland’s leadership in advanced semiconductor manufacturing”.
In August 2025, the US government announced it was converting $5.7bn in unpaid Chips Act grants into an equity stake. That was part of a broader push to secure stakes in firms it deems critical to supply chains, but also helped shore up operations at what was once the US’s biggest chipmaker.
In addition to Intel 3 silicon wafers, the fresh capital being injected into Leixlip will link its factories into a single automated production line and support output of Intel’s Xeon 6 and next-generation Xeon processors.
