- Intel’s $28 billion Ohio campus received its first CHIPS Act disbursement of $1.5 billion in May 2026, triggered by verified completion of the basement level of its first fab and 9.4 million construction work hours logged.
- A January 2026 NBER working paper estimates the Act generated between 42,465 and 54,385 direct and indirect jobs across 149 counties, while the Commerce Department projects over 115,000 manufacturing and construction jobs across 23 projects.
- Intel Ohio’s production start has slipped from 2025 to 2030-2031, and a projected shortage of up to 300,000 skilled semiconductor workers by decade-end puts the Act’s output targets under real pressure.
Intel’s first federal payment for its Ohio campus arrived in May 2026 only after construction crews finished the basement level of the first fab and logged more than 9.4 million work hours, a condition the Commerce Department enforced before releasing a dollar. That $1.5 billion tranche is the clearest signal yet that CHIPS Act disbursements are tied to physical progress, not announcements.
Milestone-Gated Disbursements
The CHIPS Act allocates roughly $53 billion in total funding, with $39 billion dedicated to manufacturing incentives. By January 2025, the Commerce Department had distributed $30.7 billion in awards and $5.5 billion in loans across 40 projects involving 19 semiconductor companies, with a further 12 companies having signed preliminary agreements pending final due diligence. Intel’s finalised award of $7.86 billion covers facilities across Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon; the $1.5 billion Ohio tranche is the first installment against that total. Releasing funds against documented construction milestones is designed to limit the exposure that comes with large industrial bets: public money moves when private commitments are visibly materialising.
Private Investment Floods In
Private sector spending on electronics manufacturing construction was running at more than $11 billion per month as of June 2024, an annual rate of roughly $135 billion, against an average of $6 billion per year between 2011 and 2020. More than $640 billion in domestic fab investment has been announced since the Act’s passage, with over 50 new semiconductor projects underway. The stated goal is to lift the US share of global chip manufacturing capacity from roughly 10% in 2022 to 20% by 2030, and to capture nearly 30% of leading-edge production by 2032.
Intel’s Ohio build-out illustrates the ambition. The first fab had targeted 4nm production in the first half of 2025; a second will target 2nm by 2028; and a third is planned for 2nm or more advanced processes before 2030.
Micron Technology plans to invest roughly $100 billion in New York and $50 billion in Idaho, targeting a US share of advanced memory manufacturing that rises from less than 2% today to roughly 10% by 2035. The New York plan centres on a four-fab complex in Clay, each fab carrying 600,000 square feet of cleanroom space. Texas Instruments received up to $1.61 billion in direct CHIPS funding in December 2024 to support more than $18 billion in new construction across two Texas sites and one in Utah. Samsung is separately expanding chip fabrication capacity in Central Texas.
Jobs Created, Shortfalls Ahead
A January 2026 working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research estimates the Act generated between 15,000 and 16,000 direct semiconductor jobs nationally, plus roughly 15,000 to 30,000 in related industries including construction. A September 2025 Brookings summary put the combined direct and indirect figure at between 42,465 and 54,385 jobs across 149 counties with semiconductor manufacturing facilities. The Semiconductor Industry Association puts the broader count at 70,000 jobs created since 2020, attributing this to the CHIPS Act alongside other manufacturing incentives. The Commerce Department projects more than 115,000 manufacturing and construction jobs across 23 projects in 15 states.
The workforce gap is the sharper concern. Projections suggest the US could face a shortage of up to 300,000 skilled semiconductor workers by the end of the decade, covering fab operators, equipment maintenance and chip design engineers; new fab construction alone is expected to require 48,000 new technician and engineering positions by 2030. The Act includes $13 billion for semiconductor research and workforce training, but the scale of investment committed under the CHIPS Act means the supply of trained workers will need to keep pace with construction timelines that are already moving fast.
Where the Timeline Slips
Intel’s Ohio campus is the sharpest example of how long these projects actually take. Volume production, originally targeted for 2025, is now expected between 2030 and 2031, a slip driven by market conditions and corporate restructuring. Most new fabs across the program are not expected to reach volume production until 2028 to 2030, which means the manufacturing capacity the Act’s early disbursements are funding won’t translate into chip output for several years yet.
One near-term policy risk sits in the tax code. The Section 48D investment tax credit, which offers a 25% to 35% credit for qualifying advanced semiconductor facilities, expires on December 31, 2026. Projects that have not broken ground before that date face real uncertainty over their financing assumptions. The Commerce Department was on track to commit all remaining CHIPS Act manufacturing funds to grantees by end of 2024, concentrating later-stage awards on equipment suppliers, wafer makers and chemical engineering firms. How the tax credit question resolves, and whether Congress acts before the deadline, will shape which projects in the pipeline proceed on schedule.
