Intel’s fabs are both large and dense with complex equipment. The team is building a 2.5 million sq ft facility that includes 600,000 sq ft of clean rooms, which are carefully controlled to ensure airborne particles do not disrupt the sensitive production equipment. Each fab also features three other levels, including a deck above the clean room and floors for production-related MEP equipment and utilities below.

The project is expected to involve 7,000 construction jobs, according to Intel. Bechtel signed a project labor agreement with North America’s Building Trades Unions for the work. So far, workers have moved more than 4 million cu yd of earth, installed 10 miles of underground utilities and placed 32 miles of conduit. Upcoming work this year will build out the utility level. Manufacturing equipment is also being delivered for installation. The first of the two fabs is expected to begin operating within the next few years.

Intel has said it may build as many as eight fabs plus additional supporting facilities at the Ohio site in the future.

The U.S. Dept. of Commerce recently selected Intel for an $8.5-billion grant, plus up to $11 billion in loans, from a program created by the federal CHIPS and Science Act, enacted in 2022 to support the Ohio project and others Intel has under construction or planned in Arizona, New Mexico and Oregon. The company says it expects to invest more than $100 billion in the various projects. The department funding to Intel will be the program’s largest award, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.

The CHIPS Act set aside $39 billion to incentivize construction, modernization and expansion of fabs and other facilities related to semiconductor production. Commerce officials have said they aim for the U.S. to account for a 20% share of leading-edge chip production globally.