Intel Ohio Chip Plant Raises First Major Truss After Years of Delay

A beam goes up in New Albany

Intel says it has reached its first visible construction milestone in months at the Ohio One campus in New Albany, northeast of Columbus. On October 21, the company announced that crews had installed the first major structural truss on the site's first chip fabrication plant, or fab.113 Naga Chandrasekaran, who runs technology and operations for Intel Foundry, posted the update on Intel's website. He described it as another significant step toward more leading-edge chipmaking capacity in the U.S.113

The truss is a large assembly of beams that connects two major wall-like structures on the site. Intel says placing it marks the formal start of the next construction phase.15 Photos released with the update credit Bechtel crews with the installation. Lindsay Johnson, Intel's director of construction at Ohio One, told local television she could not be prouder of the team.15

This is still a modest step for a project once sold as the anchor of a "Silicon Heartland."2 Intel announced the plant in 2022 and said then that chips would ship in 2025. The company now aims to finish construction of the first fab in 2030, which puts the project at least five years behind its original schedule.16

How the timeline slipped

The delays have built up over several years. In early 2025, an internal memo pushed the two planned fabs, called Mod 1 and Mod 2, from a target of late 2026 to 2030 and 2031. Intel said the goal was to finish the project in a financially responsible way.14 By then, Intel had completed the basement level after more than 6.4 million work hours and about 200,000 cubic yards of poured concrete, and work above ground had begun.14 In the same memo, Chandrasekaran promised a slower pace while keeping the option to speed up if customer demand justified it.14

The change of leadership explains much of the slowdown. Former CEO Pat Gelsinger started the aggressive foundry build-out. Lip-Bu Tan, who became CEO in March 2025, has said he will commit to expansions only when he is confident there is demand to fill them.411 Tan slowed the New Albany work further and said Intel had invested too much, too soon.12 John Vinh, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets, said Intel under Gelsinger showed much less discipline about adding capacity before customers had committed.12

According to local public radio, Intel had spent more than $5 billion on the site by the end of 2025, or about $7 billion including contract commitments.12 That is a fraction of the roughly $28 billion planned for the two fabs.312

Where the reporting disagrees

The coverage agrees on the truss, the original 2025 target and the 2030 finish for the first fab. It is less consistent on the details. Most outlets say the second fab is due in 2031.19 Others describe the plan as finishing the second building in 2031 and starting operations there in 2032. One Columbus station says both fabs will now be built by 2032.15175 The stated investment also varies: most reports use the $28 billion figure, while one local station calls it a $20 billion facility.315

The most important difference is about what the announcement actually commits Intel to. Several summaries present 2030 as a firm date. One closer reading points out that the October update gave no new timeline, so the most recent official forecast is still the one from February 2025.17 In August, Intel said only that it remained on track to finish the first fab by 2031. It would not say how much of the construction was done, and it described Ohio deadlines as flexible depending on customer demand.12 Axios Columbus noted that this was the second Intel update in 2026 without news of another slowdown. In a project known for delays, that counts as progress.13

The best reading is that the truss shows Intel is still building, not that it is speeding up. The schedule has not moved. What has changed is the tone.

The "Trump effect" framing

Some conservative coverage credits the White House with the progress. It points out that President Trump negotiated a 10 percent U.S. government stake in Intel in 2025, and it uses the milestone to argue that private capital markets underfund heavy industry.2 Federal policy does shape the economics. A 2025 tax law raised the investment credit for advanced chip manufacturing from 25 to 35 percent for projects that start construction before the end of 2026.17 Intel also received a one-year federal waiver that lets it keep using some foreign-made robotic equipment in its fabs, because there is no comparable American technology.15

However, nothing in the reporting directly connects the Ohio truss to the government's stake. The same piece that uses the "Trump effect" label also blames the slow timeline on Tan's caution.2 The project began under the CHIPS Act, which steered $1.5 billion directly to Ohio One in November 2024.14 Several administrations have backed this site, and in each case the pace of construction has followed Intel's finances and order book more than political announcements.

The demand picture explains the renewed momentum better than politics does. Coverage citing Bloomberg says AI services have created more demand for Intel's own data center processors than it can supply.4 In July, the company raised its 2026 capital spending target to $20 billion, and in August it expanded a stock offering to $20 billion.4 Intel's stock had gained more than 135 percent this year as of the October announcement.3 A company with that much cash and demand can afford to keep cranes moving in Ohio.

Arizona moves first

The Ohio news came with a more concrete update from Arizona. Intel has started installing production tools at Fab 62 on its Ocotillo campus near Phoenix. It will be the sixth high-volume fab at the site and is expected to start operating by the end of 2028.517 The Arizona fab next door, Fab 52, has been making Intel's most advanced 18A chips in high volume since late 2025.15

The update also covered sites in Oregon, New Mexico and California, including the start of construction on a photomask facility in Santa Clara.1317 Intel says its U.S. operations rely on more than 4,500 suppliers in 49 states and over $29 billion a year in spending.17 One local official has said that, as far as he knows, Intel has not yet ordered the custom chipmaking tools for Ohio. That gap matters, because the tools can take about two years to arrive.12 In practice, Arizona is where Intel is actually adding capacity, and Ohio is where it is keeping an option open.

The missing piece is customers

Every account comes back to the same question: who will Ohio make chips for? Intel has not announced a major outside customer for 18A and uses that output for its own processors.16 Company filings show most of its foundry work still serves internal demand.3 In September, reports said SK Hynix, the leading maker of high-bandwidth memory, might lease space in Ohio to make memory chips. Neither company has confirmed a deal.9 Another outlet reports that SK hynix has denied wanting to buy the fabs.17

Analysts see an opening for Intel. Mizuho's Jordan Klein says even Nvidia, AMD, Apple and Broadcom are competing fiercely for capacity at TSMC.1 TechInsights analyst Dan Hutcheson says big chip designers want a second source to gain pricing leverage over TSMC, and that all of the large ones have been testing Intel's processes.1 Vinh adds that geopolitical pressure is pushing companies to make chips outside Taiwan.12 Still, Intel's past delays at the 7- and 10-nanometer nodes contributed to its worst stock year on record in 2024 and made customers wary of long-term commitments.69

Local leaders are hopeful but realistic. Licking County Commissioner Tim Bubb calls the site too big to fail but openly asks whether Intel, Nvidia or a group of companies will end up running it.12 New Albany Mayor Sloan Spalding says Intel has been open about needing customers to keep the project moving.12 Meanwhile, Meta has asked regulators for permission to draw power from an unused electrical substation built for the Intel project to serve a data center.12 For now, the AI boom is using infrastructure built for Ohio One while the fab itself remains unfinished.

The truss is a real milestone and a sign that Intel has not given up on Ohio. On its own, though, the steel does not show the project will pay off. That depends on a signed foundry contract, which Intel still has not announced.