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Intel pauses work on $25B Israel fab
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- cameldrv 2y agoLast line: "The $200 million facility was planned to include creature comforts such as outdoor sports fields, green areas, pop-up restaurants, and even a rooftop health center and spa. However, the project was later reimagined as a parking lot"
- hot_gril 2y agoClassic
- _heimdall 2y ago> reimagined as a parking lot Oh I'm sure it was a few people staring at designs for the new campus only for one person to realize, "...but it could be a parking lot!"
- qblv 2y agoPaved paradise and put up a parking lot.
- Dalewyn 2y agoTo be clear, that Waste Of Money(tm) which was cancelled 1.5 years ago[1] is at most tangentially related to the fab being discussed in this article. [1]: https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/18/intel_israeli_research/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/18/intel_israeli_researc...
- Dylan16807 2y agoAt such a big distance away yeah it's barely related. On the other hand if they built something like that next to the fab I wouldn't call it a waste of money. It would be less than 1% of the budget to make things nicer for employees.
- userbinator 2y ago..."with the cash redirected to fuelling Intel's foundry push." Good to see practical thinking overruling "designers" and their wankery. "Stop wasting money on useless crap and focus on your business" is advice that is rarely taken, unfortunately.
- msikora 2y agoTaiwan is too unstable - let's build in Israel!
- pylua 2y agoWouldn’t the us government step in if intel was bombed in Israel ?
- clipsy 2y agoWould it matter? There's no response that will magically rebuild a fab overnight. Better to build it somewhere it's unlikely to be bombed in the first place.
- nebula8804 2y agoYeah...so lets put our crown fab in a desert that is slowly being reclaimed by the planet.
- richrichie 2y ago>reclaimed by the planet you mean the desert was taken away from the planet and the planet is claiming it back? where will it go?
- nebula8804 2y agoWe are all dirt that emerged from the planet. Sooner or later (probably sooner) the planet takes back what belongs to it. [1]:https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/us/arizona-water-rio-verde-scottsdale.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/us/arizona-water-rio-verd...
- richrichie 2y agoAre you saying there are things that planet has that do not belong to it?
- magic_man 2y agoDoesn't seem like a great idea to put a fab in such a dangerous spot.
- dexzod 2y agoBesides with the attacks happening right now on commercial ships in Gulf of Aden. It could become very expensive to bring anything out from these fabs or providing raw material
- usefulcat 2y agoSemiconductor products tend to have quite a high $$/weight ratio; air transport might be a reasonable backup plan.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoIntel is king of starting projects then killing them. Ask anyone who lived in Austin in the early '00s and remembers the "Intel shell", a half-built downtown office building that was eventually imploded. An aerial acrobatics company did put on some really good aerial silks performances there before it was imploded, so that was cool.
- irjustin 2y agoSeems crazy to me that they would do this over and over. Who's allowing projects to be green lit only to be killed after you've dumped a whole bunch of money into it. I understand geopolitics can change things as Israel is in the hot seat right now, but doing it regularly seems wasteful.
- ammo1662 2y agoThe people who allowed the project already got their money from shares and rebates. They may leave the company or just retire. Then their successors kill the project to save the budget. They can also get well paid from their high level KPIs. Win-win, right? As for the company, who cares? It is already too big to fail.
- m463 2y agoAren't all large companies prone to this? google has killed projects. apple has killed projects. (they've all killed products too)
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoIt's not just about killing projects. It's specifically about: 1. Getting loads of government incentives to build an office/factory in some locale. 2. Start the project, then when the winds change, leave it as a blight/eyesore for years without having any incentive to do anything about how you dropped a big turd in a community based on false promises. I don't have a problem when companies change plans due to changing market conditions. I do have a problem when they don't clean up their messes in a timely manner.
- Waterluvian 2y agoWhy would Israel have ever been an intelligent location for that? Was it just about connections and money? Surely there’s places with better labour or logistics options.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoIsrael has incredible tech talent in general but especially in semiconductor design. For example, Amazon’s chips are designed by a company they acquired in Israel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapurna_Labs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapurna_Labs). I’m not sure what the causes are, but Israel has a lot of talent and an entrepreneurial culture that’s bigger than its size implies.
- nsguy 2y agoMoney is certainly part of it, the Israeli government tends to subsidize these sorts of initiatives. Costs would typically be lower vs. other options like Japan, Germany or the USA even without those subsidies. Israel has a long history of semiconductor expertise. From Intel's first R&D office outside the US in 1974 to many others. Mellanox, Tower Semiconductors etc. There's a lot of know-how and expertise and Israel would typically be considered one of the top 10 (if not higher) countries in the world in this area. https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/neal-notes/israeli-semiconductor-industry-continues-to-thrive-but-some-clouds-may-be-on-horizon https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/neal-notes/i... https://www.diskmfr.com/unveiling-israeli-semiconductor-powerhouse-a-desert-miracle/ https://www.diskmfr.com/unveiling-israeli-semiconductor-powe...
- wslh 2y ago> Money is certainly part of it, the Israeli government tends to subsidize these sorts of initiatives. Governments, in general, tend to subsidize these sorts of initiatives and compete with other nations and states.
- ThrowawayR2 2y agoIntel has had development centers in Israel for a long time; people with computer architecture backgrounds might remember that the Pentium M, which evolved into their Core line of CPUs, was designed at their Haifa facility. It saved Intel's bacon when their Pentium 4 architecture started running out of steam relative to their competitors. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/corporate-responsibility/intel-in-israel.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/corporate-responsibi... They also had fabs in Israel already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si.... The paused one is Fab 38, which was to have been built alongside the existing Fab 28. [EDIT] Removed an unnecessary digression.
- outside2344 2y ago[flagged]
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago[flagged]
- solarpunk 2y agoI wouldn't be so hasty to say this, it's still underway. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip_famine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip_famine
- nsguy 2y agoThis is inevitably going to devolve into a flame war. But I'll try to give some interesting references. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-un-disagree-over-gaza-aid-figures-2024-04-10/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-un-disagree... Israel claims the UNRWA is not counting aid trucks going into Gaza from Israel resulting in a significant undercount of aid provided to Palestinian civilians during the war. Another view from the Israeli side: https://www.ynetnews.com/article/syns3cuk0 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/syns3cuk0 "Hamas slashes food prices as Gaza flooded with humanitarian aid" And another perspective on the problems on the ground (people stealing and reselling food): https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/03/15/israel-hamas-war-gazans-are-at-the-mercy-of-profiteers-driving-up-food-prices_6621377_4.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/03/15/i... No doubt the intense war fought with the presence of a large civilian population has an impact on the population.
- nsguy 2y agoFor those interested in some history around Intel's presence in Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dov_Frohman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dov_Frohman Founded Intel's R&D center in Israel in 1974. That was the first Intel R&D center outside the US.
- TechDebtDevin 2y agoSo what, things change.
- osnium123 2y agoDoes this mean that Pat Gelsinger’s vision of investing in manufacturing is in jeopardy?
- demondemidi 2y agoAlways was. His vision is from decades ago, he’s not cut out for to be a CEO.
- high_na_euv 2y agoWhat, how so?
- 0xcde4c3db 2y agoBeyond this specific project, I think it's worth keeping in mind that Intel probably isn't just shoving money into Israel for no reason (or sketchy geopolitical reasons); the company's history there goes back to the '70s and includes a few major milestones, like the 8088 (which is "just" a cut-down 8086, but was used in the original IBM PC) and the Pentium M (which arguably rescued Intel from its overcommitment to P4/NetBurst by forming the basis of the original Core architecture).
- glitchc 2y agoThe Core architecture saved Intel at a time it was headed for irrelevance with the PIII and P4. Both couldn't compete with comparable AMD offerings.
- The_Colonel 2y agoIt's not like Core arch was some radical new design. It's mostly just reverting to the evolution of PIII (which itself is mostly a minor evolution of the Pentium Pro).
- TechDebtDevin 2y agoIt's baffling to me why all the biggest fabs are built in high risk potential conflict zones. South Korea, Taiwan and Israel. It's terrible capital management if we're going to use those words.
- xwolfi 2y agoBuild it in France and Italy and come back tell me about capital management :)
- rtpg 2y agoYou say that but honestly given the salary gaps that we're seeing in US vs the rest of the world, somebody is one day going to make a good arbitrage play with "made in EU" prestige + a pretty understood process + low euro salaries + American disposable income.
- throwaway48476 2y agoThe risk profile changed.
- outside1234 2y agoSo building a fab in a constant war zone is a bad idea? Can’t believe it.
- anArbitraryOne 2y agoI guess they're tired of their civilian employees being targeted by jihadists
- yareal 2y agoIf you are considering investing tens of billions into infrastructure for manufacturing in a country, it seems like a business risk to choose a country that is currently facing genocide charges in the ICC and UN. And before you brigade me, I'm making no comments about the validity of those charges either way. I'm saying it's an obvious increased risk as an investor. It's possible that Israel becomes subject to sanctions or subject to increased international scrutiny or gets embroiled in regional conflict. Those seem like business risks that might change the calculus.
- dsab 2y agoCome to Poland, our country has no charges of genocide brought against it in international court and labour is cheap
- yes_really 2y ago[flagged]
- _xivi 2y ago> The rate of civilians and combatants dead is lower than the average of urban wars You're talking proudly as if killing tens of thousands of civilians (most of which are children) is "a quota" you need hit. > Israel seeks to minimize collateral damage to Palestinian victims Where's the evidence? Please don't say something atrocious like "We could've killed more than 35,000 civilians if we wanted. This is just a taste". We've seen you bombing aid workers, ambulances, and international medics. Remember the World Central Kitchen aid convoy attack? If your objective is truly to destroy the terrorists and you wish no harm to the innocent civilians. Why don't you take the civilians as refugees instead of bombing them and pushing them out of their land to other countries? We've seen the blockade. We've seen the illegal settlements and kicking people of their homes and land. We've seen babies dying of malnutrition. We've seen how you treat the innocent civilians outside and long before this war. Are you going to say "Look at the US, our killing of aboriginals and taking over their land is on average with other colonial powers so that makes it ok"? Isn't it weird how you claim you "didn't mean it" but at the same time you never actually express any empathy or condolences to the tens of thousands of victims and their families?
- yes_really 2y ago[flagged]