{"id":495707,"date":"2026-06-12T08:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T08:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/495707\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T08:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T08:18:13","slug":"what-intels-remarkable-comeback-means-for-ireland-inc-and-for-leixlip-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/495707\/","title":{"rendered":"What Intel\u2019s remarkable comeback means for Ireland Inc, and for Leixlip \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been a remarkable <\/a>few months for Intel <\/a>\u2013 and a turnaround <\/a>story that few saw coming.<\/p>\n

One of the jewels in the Irish multinational crown employing almost 5,000 people here, it appeared at the turn of the year that the chipmaker had lost its lustre<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The narrative was thus: its technology had fallen behind and the company was fighting a losing battle against newer and more advanced competitors in the field of artificial intelligence. It was lagging the likes of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and Nvidia \u2013 and there was no sign of a comeback story.<\/p>\n

The implications for its main Irish operation in Leixlip, Co Kildare were unclear \u2013 and at times a little gloomy. <\/p>\n

Just a few years ago, on a lovely September morning in 2023, the then chief executive Pat Gelsinger gladhanded taoiseach Leo Varadkar and the minister for enterprise Simon Coveney at its Irish headquarters. <\/p>\n

Gelsinger had been brought back to the company in 2021 to turn around its fortunes \u2013 but it seemed he was failing. His plan was to go all-in on the company\u2019s foundry business and be a manufacturer not only of semiconductors for its own computers \u2013 but put itself in a position to build for others as well.<\/p>\n

Fab-34 in Leixlip was to be a big part of that.<\/p>\n

The unit makes chips including Core Ultra processors for PCs and Xeon processors for servers. State-of-the-art, the fab deploys extreme ultraviolet lithography machines (EUVs).<\/p>\n

With the company about to officially unveil its new massive multibillion euro investment in its new chip-making abilities \u2013 there were smiles from the politicians and Gelsinger and small talk for the cameras. <\/p>\n

But the mood was a bit off.<\/p>\n

The new facility had been seen by some as a consolation prize after Ireland had lost out on a planned new \u20ac30 billion \u2018Silicon Junction\u2019. That was to go to Germany instead. <\/p>\n

Compounding the uneasy mood, just a year earlier, staff in Leixlip had been asked to consider taking unpaid leave as demand for Intel\u2019s PC chips slumped. <\/p>\n

In the first quarter of 2023 its share price had tumbled after it posted miserable earnings projections and, at the same time, its rival Nvidia had overtaken it on the stock markets with a $1 trillion valuation.<\/p>\n

Despite this, Gelsinger was in good form on the day, saying: \u201cWe\u2019re going to build a lot of chips here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within months of all the fanfare that accompanied the Fab-34 opening however, Apollo Global Management would buy 49 per cent of the Leixlip plant for $11 billion. <\/p>\n

The mood worsened considerably \u2013 with the company announcing it was planning 17,000 job cuts worldwide. <\/p>\n

Discussions about voluntary redundancies <\/a>began at the Irish operation \u2013 and the planned closure of its Shannon facility was confirmed. <\/p>\n

By the end of 2024 its market valuation had fallen by 60 per cent and Gelsinger had stepped down<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Better shape<\/p>\n

Fast forward to now and Intel appears to be in much better shape. <\/p>\n

Buoyed by the demand for artificial intelligence \u2013 analysts say its balance sheet has been fixed by the new CEO Lip-Bu Tan<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This was reflected in a bout of stock market euphoria. Starting in early April, its share price had rocketed<\/a> by 300 per cent come the middle of May. It would pare some of those gains. <\/p>\n

But then on Monday rumours of a tie-up with Google and Nvidia again turbocharged the stock. <\/p>\n

Tan\u2019s strategy has been one of brutal efficiency. When arriving, it was he who set about laying off 15 per cent of the company\u2019s global workforce. This, said Intel, was about creating a \u201cfaster moving\u201d and more \u201cagile\u201d organisation. <\/p>\n

Critical to Tan\u2019s success, however, has also been two key investments \u2013 $8.9 billion from the Trump administration in August 2025 and $5 billion from Nvidia the following month. The Trump backing gave the US government a 10 per cent stake<\/a> in the company.<\/p>\n

The news since then has seen a marked reappraisal of where the company is headed.<\/p>\n

A critical part of this was the announcement in April that it was buying back<\/a> the 49 per cent shareholding in Fab-34 that it had sold to Apollo. It will pay $14.2 billion to do so \u2013 with $6.5 billion to be raised by new debt issuance.<\/p>\n

Reported by CNBC as a sign of \u201crenewed strength\u201d \u2013 it was taken by the markets as a sign that Intel was firmly on the comeback trail.<\/p>\n

Then came word that Intel had struck a preliminary agreement to manufacture some of the chips used in Apple devices.<\/p>\n

The same report detailed how Trump\u2019s commerce secretary Howard Lutnick had met repeatedly with high-ranking Apple officials over the past year to convince them to get into bed with Intel. <\/p>\n

Not only this, reported the Wall Street Journal, he had been behind efforts to tie up deals with Elon Musk and Nvidia.<\/p>\n

Apple, which is largely reliant on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) for most of its chips, has been looking for new sources of supply.<\/p>\n

The Apple news followed comments from Musk that he planned to use Intel\u2019s 14A process to make chips at his Terafab complex in Texas. They will then be used by SpaceX and Tesla. <\/p>\n

The markets have loved all of this. It seems the company is now the right one in the right place at the right time. <\/p>\n

While Nvidia had stolen a march with its advanced graphics chips that fuelled the early stages of the artificial intelligence boom \u2013 there is now renewed demand for the old fashioned central processing units that are Intel\u2019s core business. <\/p>\n

The operation at Leixlip will be central to this.<\/p>\n

The arrival of agentic AI has been the key. Systems that can achieve a specific goal without constant supervision require these CPUs and Intel appears well placed.<\/p>\n

Analysts are predicting that the market for CPUs could rise dramatically over the next few years. Bank of America has forecast that it will more than double from $27 billion in 2026 to $60 billion in 2030.<\/p>\n

Demand has increased so quickly that the company has reportedly had to warn customers in China of supply shortages. Prices have gone up by more than 10 per cent.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the huge investment that was due to go to Germany \u2013 and not Leixlip \u2013 has since been cancelled. This is despite a \u20ac10 billion subsidy from the German government.<\/p>\n

\u2018A different place\u2019<\/p>\n

So what does this all mean for Leixlip and the wider Irish economy?<\/p>\n

John \u2018Bosco\u2019 French of French Estates has seen the impact the company has had on the local property market through a number of cycles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would certainly be a different place without Intel,\u201d says the estate agent.<\/p>\n

He has detected a shift in mood among some workers recently as the share price of the company has skyrocketed. <\/p>\n

\u201cI play tennis in town \u2013 and I met an Intel worker recently. They told me how the Intel share price has gone back up to the level it was in the early 2000s \u2013 so they really have been through the doldrums.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is true. It was only in April that the Intel share price surpassed where it stood in August 2000. <\/p>\n

Since French had that conversation on the tennis court, the share price ripped upwards again \u2013 hitting a record high at one point of $129.<\/p>\n

French has sold homes to Intel workers over the years \u2013 and says many of the recent new-builds in Kildare have been snapped up by this cohort.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s lots of new builds in Celbridge, Newbridge Leixlip and Lucan \u2013 and you definitely see staff buying those,\u201d he says. \u201cThey would buy depending on their budget \u2013 those with share options and who have cashed in \u2013 can buy a bit closer to Leixlip should they want to live there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those share options certainly look better nowadays.<\/p>\n

While the share price has bumped around a little \u2013 they are still worth well over double what was seen at the turn of the year.<\/p>\n

The apparent uptick in Intel\u2019s prospects has boosted hopes that the company will maintain its strong Irish presence \u2013 and perhaps even add to it over the coming years.<\/p>\n

While the company manufactures its most advanced node 18A in Arizona, Fab-34 is likely to play an important role over the next few years. The extreme ultraviolet machines being used there to build server chips can also be deployed to build 18A. This opens the door to more advanced chips being built in Kildare.<\/p>\n

It has also been reported that Intel does a portion of its \u201cadvanced packaging\u201d for 18A chips in Leixlip. This is the process of connecting individual chips to larger systems.<\/p>\n

The turnaround story has not gone undetected in the small Kildare town.<\/p>\n

Local politicians are effusive in their praise for the company and the role it plays in the local community \u2013 and have welcomed the apparent reversal in fortunes.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hugely important\u2019<\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il councillor Bernard Caldwell says Intel regularly makes sizeable contributions to local causes \u2013 and says it recently donated \u20ac1 million to the development of a swimming pool.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntel is hugely important to Kildare and north Dublin \u2013 people travel from all over the place to work here \u2013 it has brought a lot of prosperity to Leixlip,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI organised an event there at the weekend and 12,000 people turned up \u2013 thanks to Intel and Kildare County Council. It was an inclusive family day for people with disabilities and others at the Curragh \u2013 Intel is the backbone to a lot of organisations in this community.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says that while the past few years have been rocky for the company, any redundancies have generally been extended to those workers who have been waiting on a package. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Intel makes redundancies \u2013 they generally ask staff who are there a long time do they want to leave? They\u2019re all treated pretty well \u2013 and leave with a nice package in their pocket.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the last round of redundancies there were very few people giving out \u2013 the people who got redundancy I\u2019m sure they are all working again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clearly the close relationship between Intel and the current US administration is what has helped drive the renewed expectations for the company.<\/p>\n

It looked much different when Gelsinger was replaced by Tan in March 2025. At the time the US president raised concerns about Tan\u2019s supposed close ties to China and looked for him to <\/a>resign<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tan appears to have brought Trump fully on board since then though.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like Intel,\u201d said Trump in January \u2013 claiming that the US government had made \u201ctens of billions of dollars\u201d from its Intel investment. He also took credit for the deals that were inked with the likes of Apple.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as we went in, Apple went in, Nvidia went in, a lot of smart people went in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The sudden improvement in the share price and general sentiment had caught analysts unawares.<\/p>\n

Deutsche Bank and Bank of America have both raised their target prices for Intel stock by a significant amount to reflect the growing confidence around its foundry business.<\/p>\n

At the same time, those target prices are a distance behind the current price \u2013 suggesting that the good news has been more than priced in. <\/p>\n

Intel has also benefited from the investor euphoria surrounding AI \u2013 and concerns about over-blown valuations are ever present. It has been suggested that institutional investors have had little option other than to plough considerable amounts of money into all the main chipmakers.<\/p>\n

Several Wall Street analysts have pointed out that the company will have to invest large sums if it is to deliver on this new positive outlook. They also refer to the fact that Intel reported a net loss of $3.73 billion just two months ago.<\/p>\n

It will take 18 months, they say, before the company can begin to show it deserves its current market capitalisation.<\/p>\n

But a stock market correction to Intel\u2019s remarkable resurgence is unlikely to worry those watching Fab-34 \u2013 so long as the customers arrive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been a remarkable few months for Intel \u2013 and a turnaround story that few saw coming.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[218,61,13321,60,3770,57367,43,233,26693],"class_list":["post-495707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-ie","tag-intel","tag-ireland","tag-kildare","tag-leixlip","tag-news","tag-nvidia","tag-tsmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}