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Investing.com – Intel stock (NASDAQ:INTC) traded 0.3% higher in Monday’s premarket following news that the chipmaker will invest $7.1 billion in a new facility in Malaysia.
A media invitation sent out by the Malaysian Investment Development Authority said the company has chosen the country to expand manufacturing capabilities for its advanced semiconductor packaging technologies in the northern state of Penang.
This is the latest major capacity extension by Intel to be announced Intel, after its $20-billion commitment to set up two new plants in Arizona. The company is now playing catch-up after ceding ground to the likes of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM), Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) and Samsung (KS:005930) in the last two decades.
TSMC is spending $100 billion over 3 years to expand its capacity, while Samsung is also expected to commit to a big new factory in Texas in the near future.
The race amongst countries to attract the likes of Intel, Samsung and TSMC (NYSE:TSM) for their next semiconductor plant has intensified in the last year as companies look for new locations to cater to the record demand for chips. That hunt has been complicated by a deepening divide between the U.S. and China, forcing U.S. companies to look further afield for low-cost manufacturing sites.
Demand for chips has soared as electronic devices find more uses in a pandemic-struck world and companies and academic institutions adopt hybrid work and study practices. Demand has also come from the auto sector as the new generation of cars becomes more technology intensive.
