Intel retires Hillsboro megalab to save $700 million

Not only the mega campus in Haifa, also another major investment announced by intel will not materialize, victim of the cuts that the company is working to contain costs. We are talking about the “megalab” which, with an investment of 700 million dollars, should have arisen a Hillsboro.

In the megalab, the construction of which was supposed to be completed within this year, the US company was supposed to finalize technologies to make datacenters more sustainablefocusing on “major issues such as overheating, cooling and water consumption”.

Rendering of the megalab that was to be built in Hillsboro, Oregon

“We are trying to reduce costs and increase efficiency through multiple initiatives. This includes browsing for cheaper real estate options to continue the datacenter research and development work in Oregon that is already underway,” Intel spokeswoman Penelope Bruce told the local site. Oregonlive.

intel it will therefore continue to conduct research on data center innovation and efficiency (with a particular focus on immersion liquid cooling) which he had planned to take place in the new facility, but will simply take place in another location, still in Oregon, and at much lower cost.

Intel expects to reduce costs by 3 billion by 2023, rising to a combined figure of $8-10 billion by 2025. The cancellation of the $700 million megalab, along with the shelving of Israel’s $200 million mega-campus project, brings the cost to around 900 million dollars. To these numbers must be added layoffs for an unspecified number of employees and other maneuvers yet to be discovered.

In this situation, we can’t help but mention the stalemate on the back-end and packaging plant in Italy, with CEO Pat Gelsinger speaking not exactly reassuring words in recent days. The decisions of Intel’s top management are similar to those that all the other US technology giants are operating, from Amazon to Microsoft passing through Googlefollowing the slowdown of the economy and the increase in inflation and interest rates.