Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger (L) and Intel Factory Manager Hugh Green (R) watch as US President Joe Biden (C) looks at a semiconductor wafer during a tour at Intel Ocotillo Campus in Chandler, Arizona, this week. The White House unveiled almost $20 billion in new grants and loans Wednesday to support Intel

President Biden just awarded $8.5 billion dollars to the company Intel to help fund semiconductor factories in Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico, and Oregon.

At a visit to Intel’s campus outside Phoenix this week, Biden said the money will help semiconductor manufacturing make a comeback in the US after 40 years.

The money for Intel comes from the CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed in 2022 to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing. The administration’s goal? For 20% of the world’s leading-edge semiconductor chips to be made on American soil by 2030.

The US currently makes zero of the world’s leading-edge semiconductor chips. By 2030, the Biden administration wants to make a fifth of them. So how will America get there?

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(Image credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI)

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