Intel for Business

WASHINGTON--Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini announced on Tuesday a $7 billion investment in U.S.-based manufacturing facilities, telling a crowd of Washington elites that the current economic recession gives the nation an opportunity to make once-in-a-lifetime changes and investments for the future.

"For nations like the United States, absolutely nothing about the future is inevitable or guaranteed--not jobs, not leadership, not our standard of living," Otellini told the Economic Club of Washington here. "How we deal with these changes can lead us to new heights--or they will define the beginning of a downward spiral."

It will take both public and private investments, Otellini said, for the United States to remain the world's leading innovator as well as retain its manufacturing economy.

"We need to focus on industries of the future," he said. "Ones in which we can command a competitive advantage."

For Intel, that means a $7 billion, two-year investment in existing factories in New Mexico, Arizona, and Oregon to manufacture silicon wafers with 32nm process technology. The investment is expected to support 7,000 high-wage jobs at those factories and support thousands of contract jobs for technicians and construction workers.

The investment is Intel's largest ever in a single process technology.