It has been a remarkable few months for Intel – and a turnaround story that few saw coming.
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.
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 – and there was no sign of a comeback story.
The implications for its main Irish operation in Leixlip, Co Kildare were unclear – and at times a little gloomy.
READ MORE
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.
Gelsinger had been brought back to the company in 2021 to turn around its fortunes – but it seemed he was failing. His plan was to go all-in on the company’s foundry business and be a manufacturer not only of semiconductors for its own computers – but put itself in a position to build for others as well.
Fab-34 in Leixlip was to be a big part of that.
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).
With the company about to officially unveil its new massive multibillion euro investment in its new chip-making abilities – there were smiles from the politicians and Gelsinger and small talk for the cameras.
But the mood was a bit off.
The new facility had been seen by some as a consolation prize after Ireland had lost out on a planned new €30 billion ‘Silicon Junction’. That was to go to Germany instead.
Compounding the uneasy mood, just a year earlier, staff in Leixlip had been asked to consider taking unpaid leave as demand for Intel’s PC chips slumped.
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.
Despite this, Gelsinger was in good form on the day, saying: “We’re going to build a lot of chips here.”
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.
The mood worsened considerably – with the company announcing it was planning 17,000 job cuts worldwide.
Discussions about voluntary redundancies began at the Irish operation – and the planned closure of its Shannon facility was confirmed.
By the end of 2024 its market valuation had fallen by 60 per cent and Gelsinger had stepped down.
Better shape
Fast forward to now and Intel appears to be in much better shape.
Buoyed by the demand for artificial intelligence – analysts say its balance sheet has been fixed by the new CEO Lip-Bu Tan.
This was reflected in a bout of stock market euphoria. Starting in early April, its share price had rocketed by 300 per cent come the middle of May. It would pare some of those gains.
But then on Monday rumours of a tie-up with Google and Nvidia again turbocharged the stock.
Tan’s strategy has been one of brutal efficiency. When arriving, it was he who set about laying off 15 per cent of the company’s global workforce. This, said Intel, was about creating a “faster moving” and more “agile” organisation.
Critical to Tan’s success, however, has also been two key investments – $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 in the company.
The news since then has seen a marked reappraisal of where the company is headed.
A critical part of this was the announcement in April that it was buying back the 49 per cent shareholding in Fab-34 that it had sold to Apollo. It will pay $14.2 billion to do so – with $6.5 billion to be raised by new debt issuance.
Reported by CNBC as a sign of “renewed strength” – it was taken by the markets as a sign that Intel was firmly on the comeback trail.
Then came word that Intel had struck a preliminary agreement to manufacture some of the chips used in Apple devices.
The same report detailed how Trump’s 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.
Not only this, reported the Wall Street Journal, he had been behind efforts to tie up deals with Elon Musk and Nvidia.
Apple, which is largely reliant on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) for most of its chips, has been looking for new sources of supply.
The Apple news followed comments from Musk that he planned to use Intel’s 14A process to make chips at his Terafab complex in Texas. They will then be used by SpaceX and Tesla.
The markets have loved all of this. It seems the company is now the right one in the right place at the right time.
While Nvidia had stolen a march with its advanced graphics chips that fuelled the early stages of the artificial intelligence boom – there is now renewed demand for the old fashioned central processing units that are Intel’s core business.
The operation at Leixlip will be central to this.
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.
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.
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.
Meanwhile, the huge investment that was due to go to Germany – and not Leixlip – has since been cancelled. This is despite a €10 billion subsidy from the German government.
‘A different place’
So what does this all mean for Leixlip and the wider Irish economy?
John ‘Bosco’ French of French Estates has seen the impact the company has had on the local property market through a number of cycles.
“It would certainly be a different place without Intel,” says the estate agent.
He has detected a shift in mood among some workers recently as the share price of the company has skyrocketed.
“I play tennis in town – 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 – so they really have been through the doldrums.”
This is true. It was only in April that the Intel share price surpassed where it stood in August 2000.
Since French had that conversation on the tennis court, the share price ripped upwards again – hitting a record high at one point of $129.
French has sold homes to Intel workers over the years – and says many of the recent new-builds in Kildare have been snapped up by this cohort.
“There’s lots of new builds in Celbridge, Newbridge Leixlip and Lucan – and you definitely see staff buying those,” he says. “They would buy depending on their budget – those with share options and who have cashed in – can buy a bit closer to Leixlip should they want to live there.”
Those share options certainly look better nowadays.
While the share price has bumped around a little – they are still worth well over double what was seen at the turn of the year.
The apparent uptick in Intel’s prospects has boosted hopes that the company will maintain its strong Irish presence – and perhaps even add to it over the coming years.
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.
It has also been reported that Intel does a portion of its “advanced packaging” for 18A chips in Leixlip. This is the process of connecting individual chips to larger systems.
The turnaround story has not gone undetected in the small Kildare town.
Local politicians are effusive in their praise for the company and the role it plays in the local community – and have welcomed the apparent reversal in fortunes.
‘Hugely important’
Fianna Fáil councillor Bernard Caldwell says Intel regularly makes sizeable contributions to local causes – and says it recently donated €1 million to the development of a swimming pool.
“Intel is hugely important to Kildare and north Dublin – people travel from all over the place to work here – it has brought a lot of prosperity to Leixlip,” he says.
“I organised an event there at the weekend and 12,000 people turned up – thanks to Intel and Kildare County Council. It was an inclusive family day for people with disabilities and others at the Curragh – Intel is the backbone to a lot of organisations in this community.”
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.
“When Intel makes redundancies – they generally ask staff who are there a long time do they want to leave? They’re all treated pretty well – and leave with a nice package in their pocket.
“With the last round of redundancies there were very few people giving out – the people who got redundancy I’m sure they are all working again.”
Clearly the close relationship between Intel and the current US administration is what has helped drive the renewed expectations for the company.
It looked much different when Gelsinger was replaced by Tan in March 2025. At the time the US president raised concerns about Tan’s supposed close ties to China and looked for him to resign.
Tan appears to have brought Trump fully on board since then though.
“I like Intel,” said Trump in January – claiming that the US government had made “tens of billions of dollars” from its Intel investment. He also took credit for the deals that were inked with the likes of Apple.
“As soon as we went in, Apple went in, Nvidia went in, a lot of smart people went in,” he said.
The sudden improvement in the share price and general sentiment had caught analysts unawares.
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.
At the same time, those target prices are a distance behind the current price – suggesting that the good news has been more than priced in.
Intel has also benefited from the investor euphoria surrounding AI – 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.
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.
It will take 18 months, they say, before the company can begin to show it deserves its current market capitalisation.
But a stock market correction to Intel’s remarkable resurgence is unlikely to worry those watching Fab-34 – so long as the customers arrive.
