Intel has restarted construction momentum across two of its flagship US manufacturing sites, according to The Next Web, which cites an update that manufacturing chief Naga Chandrasekaran posted on the company's website.
At Fab 62, part of Intel's Ocotillo campus near Phoenix, workers have begun installing production equipment, the costliest phase of readying a plant, with some tools costing hundreds of millions of dollars each.
The fab sits beside Fab 52, which is already running, and is due to begin operating in early 2028.
Ohio tells a slower story.
Intel announced the New Albany site in 2022, originally expecting production by 2025, but the first fab is now not due to start operations until 2030 to 2031, with a second fab targeted for 2032.
Workers have now installed the site's first major structural roof truss, a milestone that unlocks the next phase of building construction but still leaves equipment installation and wafer-processing qualification ahead.
Chief executive Lip-Bu Tan, who took over in March 2025, has said Ohio would proceed only once demand justified it, and the renewed activity signals Intel's growing confidence that it now does.
Orders for Intel's AI-driving data-centre processors are outpacing what it can produce, and the company is separately spending $5.7 billion to expand Xeon chip production in Ireland.
Intel lifted its 2026 spending plan to more than $20 billion in July and expects to spend significantly more in 2027, even as it continues courting outside foundry customers, including early talks with Apple and a manufacturing role in Elon Musk's Terafab project.
Rival TSMC is still expected to spend about $60 billion this year, Bloomberg reported.
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