Posted on 12/05/2005 3:05:31 AM PST by CarrotAndStick
The world's leading chip-maker Intel Corporation on Monday announced a multi-year investment plan for India, totalling over $1 billion, including $800 million over the next five years for business expansion.
The investment roadmap includes a huge chunk ($800 million) for expanding the company's business operations in India, Intel Chairman Craig Barrett told reporters in New Delhi.
The investment would focus on expanding the research and development centre in Bangalore, in addition to marketing, education and community programmes. The investment roadmap also has a provision for setting up a $250 million venture capital fund in India.
"The investment demonstrates the company's long-term commitments and builds on the foundation we created during the last ten years," Barrett said.
"We will grow our local operations, boost venture capital investment and work closely with the government, industry and educators to increase the impact of the country's information and communication technology," he added.
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Intel to build $3.5 bln plant in Israel
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Intel Corp. will build a chip plant in Israel costing more than $3.5 billion, the U.S. company said on Thursday, the largest investment ever by an industrial firm in the country.
Intel's second plant in the southern town of Kiryat Gat will add to an Israeli economy already driven by high-tech and exports.
The new plant will produce 300 mm wafers using 45 nanometer process technology starting in the second half of 2008. This will allow the company to make its chips smaller and more powerful by squeezing on more transistors.
The plant will also be Intel's second 45 nanometer factory in the world -- the first is being built in Arizona in the southwest United States, expected to come on line in late 2007.
"At over $3.5 billion this will be our largest investment in Israel and one of our largest anywhere in the world," said Tom Franz, an Intel manufacturing general manager.
He described $3.5 billion as a conservative estimate. "It could get to $4 billion," he told Reuters after a news conference.
The 45 nanometer technology will allow chip circuitry to be built at about half the size of today's standard 90 nanometers.
Alex Kornhauser, general manager of Intel Israel, said the government had approved a grant of $525 million for the new facility. Intel's $600 million upgrade of its existing plant in Kiryat Gat will receive government tax incentives.
Construction on the new plant will begin immediately. Thursday's announcement confirms one made in July by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who had said the company would invest around $4 billion.
NEW JOBS, HEAVY EXPORTS
Intel said the project will create more than 2,000 jobs at Kiryat Gat, already the site of a facility that employs about 3,500 people.
"Intel is committed to widening its lead in advanced semiconductor manufacturing," Intel President and Chief Executive Paul Otellini said in a statement.
Kornhauser said the new plant will export $3 billion a year when it reaches full production capacity, which is expected within one and a half to two years after it begins operating.
This will boost Israel's gross domestic product by about 2 percent, he added.
The world's top chipmaker, whose processors power an estimated 80 percent of personal computers, reported exports from Israel of $1.17 billion in 2004. Its exports peaked at $2.02 billion in 2002.
The company accounted for 9 percent of Israel's total electronics and information technology exports in 2004. Centrino mobile technology was developed in Israel.
In 1999, Intel -- active in Israel for 30 years -- built its plant in Kiryat Gat with a total investment of $1.6 billion, including government subsidies.
Franz said Intel decided to build its new plant in Israel because it already had a large presence in the country with an established work force and the government agreed to provide financial incentives.
Manufacturing with 300 mm wafers (about 12 inches in diameter) significantly increases the ability to produce semiconductors at a lower cost compared with more commonly used 200 mm wafers. The technology consumes 40 percent less energy and water per chip, Intel said.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1317544.cms
NEW DELHI: For 16 years, he was the intellect inside Intel , the man who worked on the 386 and 486 chips, then pioneered the path breaking Pentium. Then the urge to explore new frontiers bit him. It was time for Gen Next.
Or should we say Nexgen — a start-up that Dham joined, which was later bought by AMD , Intel’s arch-rival. AMD used Nexgen know-how to create K6, a chip that was lauded for being faster than Pentium, to the fury of Andy Grove, Intel’s legendary former CEO.
‘‘Andy told the guys in Intel he never wanted to see anything like that again. A lot of old friends called me to complain I had made life horrible for them,’’ chuckles Silicon Valley legend Vinod Dham, still looking fit at 55.
There’s a nostalgic look in his eyes. Then they start to sparkle as he talks about his present role as venture capitalist, tapping the ‘‘fantastic talent’’ in India.
A second later, he’s just as passionately lamenting the ‘‘pathetic state of India’s infrastructure’’. So where does he stand? ‘‘I’m a proud but impatient Indian,’’ he responds. ‘‘Proud of the way India is changing. Impatient because it isn’t changing fast enough.’’
Let’s start with the good part. Dham is co-founder of New Path Ventures, a $100-million fund looking to invest in companies engaged in hardware and ‘‘intellectual property creation as opposed to labour arbitrage’’. And he’s excited.
‘‘A company we’ve invested in, Nevis, is launching a product that can reduce cost of the kind of switches Cisco makes to one-tenth, have matching performance and be totally secure. And the entire research was done in Pune!’’
Another of New Path’s investments, telecom equipment manufacturer Telcima, is planning to shift its headquarters from the US to India. ‘‘India is getting hotter by the day. A few years ago, our investors weren’t confident about companies headquartered in India. Today, they’d all rather be listed on the BSE than on Nasdaq.’’
It's changing.
http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501051212-1137710,00.html
India's Real Growth Rate
Hoping for a "demographic dividend" to keep the economy booming
BY JIM ERICKSON
Monday, Dec. 05, 2005
Officials and business leaders meeting in New Delhi could not have asked for more auspicious news as they gathered last week for the World Economic Forum's annual India Economic Summit. While the three-day event was in progress, the Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex index hit all-time highs. That milestone was followed by the cheering news that the Indian economy grew at an 8% rate during the quarter ending Sept. 30, underscoring once-moribund India's claim to being the fastest-growing free-market democracy in the world.
There's a reason, however, that the boast requires qualifiers. Undemocratic, not-so-free-market China continues to set the economic pace with GDP growth exceeding 9%—a fact that seemed to dampen enthusiasm in New Delhi in the face of otherwise encouraging circumstances. In Asia, "China is clearly the leader of the flock," conceded India's Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram. "India is still just part of the flock." That chronic inferiority complex is rooted in industrial policy envy. China maintains a big advantage over India in sectors such as manufacturing, said Chidambaram, because its central government dictates "with brutal efficiency" such initiatives as the construction of commerce-greasing infrastructure projects. Meanwhile, India's fractious government—the ruling coalition is made up of more than a dozen political parties—is unable to move quickly with business-friendly plans of its own.
Yet Indian politicians at the summit expressed confidence that the country will eventually catch up—not because the government will necessarily get its act together, but because of a long-term trend known as India's "demographic dividend." With 1.3 billion citizens, China is the world's most populous country; India is second with a population of 1.1 billion. But because of Beijing's long-standing one-child policy, China's working-age population will begin to decline in the next 10 years. Meanwhile, India's youthfulness—350 million of its citizens are under age 15—ensures its workforce will expand for decades, potentially enabling it to outstrip China's economic pace through sheer weight of numbers. "This is a key thing," said Kamal Nath, India's Minister for Commerce and Industry. "China is aging faster than any other country in history. It is growing old before it has grown rich." It's one surprising side effect of Beijing's brutal efficiency that may eventually work to India's competitive advantage.
From the Dec. 12, 2005 issue.
Well, at least the REALLY good, high pay jobs won't be outsourced....pizza delivery, Walmart greeter, BurgerKing, etc.
Yup, yup.
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