While Intel has not yet confirmed the news, Ohio residents reported a 3,000-acre plot being set up for a large semiconductor factory. While large-scale semiconductor factories usually bring up thoughts of the kind of innovation happening in Japan and Taiwan, Ohio residents may soon see millions of semiconductors being made in their own state. While official plans have not yet been confirmed by the company or federal authorities, several Ohio newspapers reported that the Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel (INTC) – Get Intel Corporation Report, which forecasts a doubling of the semiconductor market to $1 trillion by 2030, is investing $1 billion to build a semiconductor plant in New Albany, Ohio.

Global Shortage of Chips

A global shortage of semiconductors, or the silicon chip material that goes into everything from cars to digital cameras, has affected companies across the world from meeting supply over the last few years — companies like Volkswagen VWAGY, Nintendo NTDOY and Apple (AAPL) – Get Apple Inc. Report have all struggled to secure enough semiconductors to meet customer demand for their products in 2021.

More confirmation that something big is coming to the New Albany area. Several sources are telling me Intel will build a billion-dollar chip manufacturing facility on 3000+ acres annexed from Licking County. Announcement expected Jan 21. Impact on Ohio‘s economy could be huge.

— Karen Kasler (@karenkasler) January 14, 2022

As producing this chip requires costly state-of-the-art infrastructure, only a few companies currently have the resources to do so. Pressure to ramp up production and open new factories is high. In November, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company TSMC and Sony Group Corp. SONY partnered to build a $7 billion in the southwestern city of Kumamoto by 2024.

“The demand for semiconductors remained strong, and our factories performed exceptionally well in a highly dynamic environment where matched sets posed huge challenges for our customers, and overall industry supply remained very constrained”, said Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, during the third-quarter earnings call on September 25.

And, he added that “the digitization of everything accelerated by the four superpowers of AI, pervasive connectivity, cloud to edge infrastructure, and ubiquitous compute are driving the sustained need for more semiconductors, and the market is expected to double to $1T (trillion) by 2030.”

Intel did not return a request to comment.