Again Spain to see them coming and again, for the second time so far in 2022, another country of the European Union is ahead of ours to attract investment, work and innovation to its ranks. Italy wins the pulse of Spain with a fund of 4 billion who hopes to convince Intel thanks not only to this money, but to other arguments that our peninsula lacks. Why has Italy knocked out Spain in the war over Intel’s FAB?
The new EU Chip Law has been approved and movements have taken place everywhere among the large countries of the Union, but once again Spain will not be among them with Pedro Sánchez at the head, mainly because of its economic and pandemic management It has been, by far and looking at the data a posteriori, the worst of all the EU countries.
Italy throws all the meat on the grill with Intel’s promise to invest brutal figures for the next 8 years, that is, it wants to invest in its lithographic processes and chips until 2030. Will this sister country manage to take the second FAB of the EU?
Italy vs Spain: war for Intel’s FAB in Europe
Europe is going to water down any company that wants to set up a series of high-performance chip FABs with public money in the purest US style. that the first assignment has been for Intel in Germany and the second is in dispute where each country has to negotiate internally with the blue giant.
For this reason, Intel wants to take advantage of the fact that in order to receive public money from the EU it has to comply with certain protocols and actions in favor of the Union, so the advantages go to the territorial negotiations and that is where Italy goes with everything.
A leaked draft decree shows part of the Italian project: 4,000 million euros that will be about 8 billion after the 10 years Intel’s commitment to the destination country of its FAB. But as we have said, money is not enough guarantee.
STMicroelectronics, MEMC eElectronic and Tower Semiconductor on stage
It is not a guarantee at all because an infrastructure, companies and materials are needed to supply the FAB in large quantities with materials, chips and other necessities that Intel requires (unknown at the moment). Intel knows that everyone wants their cake, or at least a part of it, and according to what has been leaked, it seems that they are negotiating very hard. Here the three companies mentioned come into play, since the last one will be bought by Intel and is based in Italy and the remaining two could supply key components to this new factory.
And it is doing so because France is almost certainly going to take away the company’s R&D center, so it would be very interested in also having the new FAB next to the complex. For this reason, it is Italy that is putting more meat on the grill because again Germany and France would be the beneficiaries in exchange for having given up enough for it.
Meanwhile, Spain was eliminated by Intel at the first opportunity when it became interested in these FABs, since it does not have the industry or the necessary infrastructure that the company wants, where it also seems that we did not offer any fiscal or economic incentives since Sanchez’s executive.
Therefore, the war between Spain and Italy over this new FAB of Intel chips remains in two opponents again, where we are not in the fight, who will take it?
