CEO Gelsinger has a new blueprint to boost Intel's manufacturing capabilities

Technology firm Intel has announced plans to expand its manufacturing capabilities, with CEO Pat Gelsinger announcing a $20 billion investment to build two factories in Arizona.  

The executive made the announcement in a virtual event, dubbed 'Intel Unleashed: Engineering the Future'.  

Gelsinger detailed the company’s plans to move forward in manufacture, design and deliverance of products, and revealed his vision for the evolution of the firm’s integrated device manufacturing (IDM) model, called IDM 2.0.   

A global internal factory network for at-scale manufacturing, expanded use of third-party foundry capacity, and building a foundry business called Intel Foundry Services (IFS) will drive leadership, he said. The standalone business unit will be led by Intel’s chief supply chain officer Randhir Thakur.   

Intel, he said, looks to become a major provider of foundry capacity in the US and Europe to serve customers globally. The firm, he said, will build on its existing relationships with the foundries for increased flexibility and scale in manufacturing.   

As part of its internal factory network, Gelsinger said that the company will manufacture a majority of its products internally.   

Read: VMWare’s Pat Gelsinger to be new Intel CEO   

The company will also form research collaborations with IBM, he said.  

Additionally, it will host an innovation event focused on the Intel Developer Forum, scheduled to be held in October in San Francisco.  

“IDM 2.0 is an elegant strategy that only Intel can deliver – and it’s a winning formula. We will use it to design the best products and manufacture them in the best way possible,” he said.  

Read: Intel, Google Cloud partner to facilitate 5G rollout with telecom-focused solutions  

In July 2020, Intel had postponed the rollout of its 7 nanometer CPUs to late 2022 or early 2023.  

However, during the event, Gelsinger said that Intel expects to compute tile for its first 7 nanometre CPU in the second quarter of 2021.  

“The company’s 7 nanometre development is progressing well, driven by increased use of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) in a rearchitected, simplified process flow,” Gelsinger said in the webcast.