By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake ?
Intel Corp.’s fab building spree has put it on the hook for capital expenditure valued at tens of billions of dollars at a time of dwindling cash flow. Western governments are supportive and Intel, too, is deploying a financial approach unusual in the chip sector. Will these suffice? Quite unlikely. Intel cannot pull back, however, so it will have to take on even more loans to fulfill its burgeoning fab pledges.
Intel Corp. wants to dramatically alter the semiconductor production landscape.
If it succeeds, the chipmaker will dramatically shift a hefty chunk of manufacturing activities swiftly from one region to another, accelerate the rebalancing of the electronics supply chain and impact the dynamics of economic, geopolitical and security discourse between the world’s major powers.