Intel continues to pull back on its manufacturing projects

Summary

Intel CEO Lip-Bau is making progress on his plan for the company to shed its inefficiencies. And that includes spiking several manufacturing projects. The semiconductor giant reported Thursday in its second-quarter earnings report that it will delay, and in some cases, not move forward with multiple manufacturing projects. Specifically, Intel said it was no longer going forward with its previously-announced projects in Germany and Poland. Those projects included an assembly and testing facility in Poland and a chip factory in Germany. Both projects have been sitting in limbo since being suspended in 2024, shortly after being announced. The company also plans to consolidate its test operations in Costa Rica and concentrate these operations to its sites in Vietnam and Malaysia. “Unfortunately, the capacity investment we make over the last several years were well ahead of demand and were unwise and excessive,” Tan said on the company’s second-quarter earnings call. “Our factory footprint has become needlessly fragmented. Going forward, we will grow our capacity based solely on the volume commitments and deploy capex lockstep with the tangible milestones, and not before.” Intel also said it was going to further delay its $28 billion Ohio chip factory. The factory was initially supposed to open in 2025, and was already delayed once this year in February. The second quarter was the first full quarter with Tan at the helm of Intel. He was named CEO of the semiconductor company on March 12 and started the role a week later. Shortly after, Tan said his plan was to eliminate inefficiencies at the company by selling off its non-core units and streamlining operations. “We have much work to do in building a clean and streamlined organization, which we have started in earnest, and is remain an area of focus for me during Q3,” Tan said on the Q2 earnings call. “Our goal is to reduce inefficiencies and redundancies and increase accountability at every level of the company.” Techcru...