Intel appears to be waking up Fab 38 again, despite Israel offering fewer sweeteners and plenty of geopolitical grief.
Chipzilla is a hive of activity these days, with signs that it is rushing to fill empty clean rooms and expand capacity. What is surprising is that it is moving forward in Israel, where subsidies look weaker and geopolitical risk is hardly hiding in the broom cupboard.
Hoffman Construction has updated its Fab 38 page to list 2026 as the year its work wraps at the Kiryat Gat site.
In July 2025, Chipzilla paused work on Fab 38 and told Hoffman to focus on completing the structure for one of the two planned clean rooms.
A little more than a year later, Hoffman looks close to finishing its part of the first clean room. The builder’s Fab 38 page says the plant will add more than 600,000 square feet of clean room space and house tools for EUV-based process nodes.
Chipzilla has now opened a vacancy for Kiryat Gat site master planner and site permitting owner, which suggests the second clean room is not dead yet.
This comes as Chipzilla is raising fresh capital through a share sale that started at $15bn and was later upsized to $20bn.
Chipzilla has been vague about the exact reason for the cash grab, saying that the “offering is intended to further enable Intel to pursue the growth opportunities ahead while maintaining a strong balance sheet and its commitment to an investment-grade rating.”
Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan has said he would only approve major foundry expansion after locking in firm deals for its bleeding-edge 14A process node.
Taken together, the Fab 38 movement and the equity raise suggest Chipzilla may finally have enough customer interest to justify building more capacity.
That is still a long way from proving 14A is a winner, but it is the clearest smoke signal yet from a company that has spent years promising a comeback.
