2026 is becoming a year of decisions for the semiconductor industry. Intel is no exception. The American giant is a legend of the chip sector, yet it may now have its last chance to prove that its decade-long effort to build a competitive manufacturing business for external customers was not a waste of time and money. What is at stake is not only billions of dollars in investment, but also Europe’s hopes for technological independence. Those hopes shrank dramatically last July, when Intel officially cancelled construction of its €30 billion factory in Magdeburg, Germany. Now, at the beginning of 2026,…
2026 is becoming a year of decisions for the semiconductor industry. Intel is no exception. The American giant is a legend of the chip sector, yet it may now have its last chance to prove that its decade-long effort to build a competitive manufacturing business for external customers was not a waste of time and money.
What is at stake is not only billions of dollars in investment, but also Europe’s hopes for technological independence. Those hopes shrank dramatically last July, when Intel officially cancelled construction of its €30 billion factory in Magdeburg, Germany. Now, at the beginning of 2026, it is becoming clear that the European project did not collapse because of poor management by the European Union, but rather as a symptom of a much larger problem affecting the entire industry.
The trend of miniaturization in semiconductor manufacturing has, from the very beginning, been guided by the famous Moore’s Law, which emerged from Gordon Moore’s empirical observation that the density of transistors on a chip roughly doubles every two years. This means that chips become twice as powerful every two years at the same cost.
Source: Denník N. You can read the full article here: https://e.dennikn.sk/5166661/preco-je-intel-na-hranici-zaniku-a-europa-na-razcesti/
