Intel goes big
Intel, one of America’s pioneering technology companies, has lately fallen on its face. Competitors raced ahead in producing the most cutting edge computer chips. It got so bad that Intel lobbied the U.S. government for taxpayer help, and it seemed possible that the company might stop manufacturing at least some of its chips. Can you imagine if Ford had to outsource making cars to Toyota?
But on Tuesday, Intel did something bold. Instead of throwing in the towel on computer chip manufacturing, Intel said it would do the opposite: Go bigger.
The company said it will spend $20 billion to build two new chip factories in Arizona. And in a surprise, my colleague Don Clark wrote, Intel plans to start taking orders to manufacture computer chips for other companies. That’s something that the global chip kings in Taiwan and South Korea do.
Intel’s choice could prove smart or misguided. We’ll see. But you’ve gotta give Intel some credit for chutzpah. We want giant companies to take risks that could pay off — to help themselves, sure, but hopefully that will trickledown into better products for the rest of us.
The timing isn’t bad, either. For both political and business reasons, this may be an ideal moment to go bigger in computer chip manufacturing.
Government officials in the United States and Europe have gotten nervous about pandemic-related shortages of computer chips. They believe that industries and militaries would have more reliable supplies if more chips were made inside their borders and not in Asia.
Intel is essentially promising to give those governments what they want, and the company wants something in return. Don reported that Intel hopes to negotiate with the Biden administration and other governments to get help paying for those chip factories.
Before we go …
A financial service that fails to protect people’s money: What happens when young companies are sometimes not good at the basics? My colleague Kellen Browning wrote about horror stories of people whose accounts with the cryptocurrency savings app Coinbase were frozen or plundered by attackers, and they said they couldn’t get Coinbase’s help.
A stabbing in Israel that challenges online speech rights: American internet companies have legal protections for what their users say online. But my colleague David McCabe examines a novel legal argument that the powerful algorithms used by Facebook, YouTube and Twitter could make them complicit in offline crimes.
Selling a New York Times column, for journalism: My colleague Kevin Roose explains the mania for NFTs, a type of digital collectible that is the newest frontier in the cryptocurrency gold rush. Kevin turned his column into an NFT and will auction it off for charity.
Hugs to this
This aging pet spider had a hard time walking up to its favorite plant hangout spot. A little spider ramp helped it find its way. (Thanks to my colleague Adam Pasick for spotting this one. And uhhh, don’t click on it if you’re weirded out by spiders.)
The New York Times
Me: The Intel Chip, Mentioned above, to invest in?