In addition to expanding its existing manufacturing facilities, Intel said it will also establish a “customer solutions center to improve local supply chain efficiency, enhance Chinese customer support and shorten response times.”
Accordingly, the company headquartered in Santa Clara, California will invest 300 million USD in Intel Products branch (in Chengdu, China) to implement the expansion plan.
Intel's Chengdu branch, established in 2003, is responsible for packaging and testing more than half of the chips used in laptops sold worldwide. Packaging and testing are the final steps in semiconductor manufacturing, ensuring the quality and reliability of a product.
Last year, during a visit to Chengdu, Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger said the city's incentives had created a favorable business environment, paving the way for the company's steady growth.
Intel’s move comes amid an ongoing tech war between the world’s two largest economies. Earlier, on October 16 this year, the China Cyber Security Association called for a comprehensive review of Intel products to protect national security and consumer rights.
The association said Intel was “irresponsible to its customers,” accusing the US company of using remote management features to monitor users and secretly installing “backdoors,” which led to information and network security risks.
To date, nearly a quarter of Intel's global revenue comes from the Chinese market. Intel CPUs are present in consumer electronics products such as laptops and data center servers.
According to the Institute of Information and Communications Technology, servers using Intel's x86 architecture will account for about 90% of the domestic CPU server market in 2023, and ARM will account for the remaining 10%.
