Intel's building a new €17B cutting-edge chipmaking fab in Germany

A mockup of the Intel fab that will be built in Germany in the near-future. — (Image credit: Intel)

Intel has announced it will be building a brand new, leading-edge foundry in Magdeburg, Germany. The new facility will cost €17 billion to construct, but Intel hopes it will massively improve its ability to deliver on its next-gen process nodes (Angstrom-era) in Europe and abroad.

It's long been assumed that Intel would pick Germany for its new European fab, but now we know exactly what Intel has in mind. Intel's building in the Saxony-Anhalt region of Germany, in a city called Magdeburg. Intel's dubbed it the "Silicon Junction", because you've got to have a nickname like that.

Beyond that, Intel's CEO Pat Gelsinger has outlined further European investment, and was even joined by president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to discuss the massive EU project with Intel.

Of course, in terms of this investments impact on PC gaming, it will be some while before that fab is up-and-running and ready to spit out the sorts of gaming processors we want in our machines. But it is a good sign of things to come, and of an Intel that's re-energised to get the somewhat tarnished global supply today back to a good level in the future.

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating into breaking things professionally at PCGamesN. Now he's managing editor of the hardware team at PC Gamer, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC.