Intel has been making semiconductors in Arizona since 1979, making it the longest-established chipmaker in the state. Its Ocotillo campus in Chandler has grown over four decades into roughly 700 acres and five high-volume fabs, with total Arizona investment exceeding $50 billion.
Chandler is now the centre of gravity for Intel's attempt to regain process leadership. Fab 52, the newest fab on the campus, became fully operational in October 2025 as the first high-volume home of the Intel 18A process - the most advanced logic node developed and manufactured in the United States. It builds the Core Ultra series 3 client processors (Panther Lake) and the Xeon 6+ server family (Clearwater Forest). Intel's chief technology and operations officer has said the fab is capable of more than 10,000 18A wafer starts per week.
That matters for Arizona beyond Intel itself. 18A introduces RibbonFET transistors and PowerVia backside power delivery, and Fab 52 is positioned as capacity for Intel Foundry customers as well as Intel's own products. Alongside TSMC's Phoenix campus, it makes the Phoenix metro one of the few places on earth where leading-edge logic for AI and data-centre computing is manufactured at scale.
Scale brings scrutiny. Intel runs a water treatment facility with the City of Chandler that recycles process water back into local supply and states that it returns more water to Arizona watersheds than it withdraws. Independent verification of that claim is limited, and water use remains an open public question for every large fab in the state.
Hiring in Arizona
Intel's Arizona openings are dominated by fab operations - lithography, dry etch, diffusion and thin-films module engineers and equipment technicians attached to Ocotillo Technology Fabrication, plus process integration and yield engineering, semiconductor packaging, and bulk chemical delivery roles. Alongside those sit AI and data-science engineering, information security, and corporate functions.
A note on locations: Intel posts most Arizona roles under the Phoenix metro label even though its operations are centred on the Ocotillo campus in Chandler. Locations below are shown exactly as Intel publishes them.
