COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Ohio union leader and his members are feeling frustrated following the announcement that Intel is delaying its production timeline on a $20 billion semiconductor manufacturing facility.
The groundbreaking plant has been one of Ohio's crowning achievements in recent years.
"The Intel plant is working great," Gov. Mike DeWine told Statehouse reporter Morgan Trau in a one-on-one interview back in Dec. 2023. "This is really moving forward."
DeWine and other Ohio leaders have continued to share their enthusiasm about having the first-of-its-kind factory right here in the Buckeye State.
Semiconductors are the chips behind e-commerce, social media, cars, computers and everything that utilizes digital technology, which nowadays is just about everything.
This wouldn't have been possible without the CHIPS Act, which President Joe Biden signed in August of 2022. The immediate economic impact was supposed to be major. The plant will create 3,000 high-paying jobs, 7,000 construction jobs and tens of thousands of additional jobs.
"The construction, when you go out there, you see it right on schedule," the governor added.
But as it turns out, construction isn't right on schedule.
Intel said their goal of starting to create chips by late 2025 isn’t possible anymore.
"Typical construction timelines for semiconductor manufacturing facilities are 3-5 years from groundbreaking, depending on a range of factors, and we broke ground in late 2022," their spokesperson said.
Although the company would not confirm, despite asking a multitude of times in a back-and-forth with the spokesperson, the Wall Street Journal reported that this delay is due to the "market challenges and the slow rollout of U.S. government grant money to grow the domestic industry."
The WSJ was the first to report the news Thursday evening, adding that construction on the project isn’t expected to be finished until late 2026.
"Delays, we understand that — we just don't want the project to come to a screeching halt," said Mike Knisley with the Ohio State Building & Construction Trades Council, a union with about 100,000 members.
And this isn't even the first delay Ohio has faced from Intel.
Months before the groundbreaking was supposed to take place, the corporation announced they would be delaying the ribbon cutting of the microchip manufacturing facility in Ohio until Congress passed the CHIPS Act.
Getting that money from the Biden administration is essential for his workers to make progress on the plant, Knisley explained. The company has only hired 11% of the construction workers from Ohio it said it would, he added.
Overall, he remains positive but unsurprised.
"I had been following Wall Street," he said. "They've been underperforming to Wall Street's expectations."
He is hopeful there will be a steady incline in workers being out in Licking County, going up from the 800 they have now to the 7,000 originally requested.
"Honestly, Morgan, this is par for the course," he told Trau.
Just because delays are normal doesn't mean they aren't frustrating," he added.
"Intel will tell you sometimes they will move at light speed and expect everybody, their trade partners, their contracting partners, to move that same light speed — and then they'll pump the brakes," he laughed.
DeWine’s team said they aren’t worried, and that these are typical delays.
"Whenever you have a construction project of this size and complexity, a delay occurring is probably likely," DeWine spokesperson Dan Tierney said.
WCPO sister station WEWS tried to get them to address what Intel is specifically citing for the halt, but they refused to elaborate.
"The story has the risk of blowing out of proportion," Tierney added. "I really am loath to try to give leg into something that doesn't have legs."
They did, however, say that the governor believes Intel will hold up their promise of coming to Ohio.
"It is going to have an impact all over the state," DeWine said in December.
WEWS reached out to the Biden administration and the state’s U.S. senators. Only the team of Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) responded.
"Senator Brown is fighting to ensure that the technologies of the future are built by Ohio workers in Ohio," a spokesperson said. "He'll continue to work with Intel and local and federal officials to ensure that this project moves forward and Ohio is home to the industries of the future.”
Follow statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.
