Keyvan Esfarjani

There’s little doubt such a massive project will have a profound impact on New Albany that touts itself as “the Number One Suburb in America,” along with its surrounding areas. Ohio governor Mike DeWine happily touted the move as part of a broader push to bring more high-tech jobs to the Buckeye State.

“Today’s announcement is monumental news for the state of Ohio,” he

There are few things politicians love more than a ceremonial groundbreaking. They get to stand there in a hard hat and suit, surrounded by C-level executives, shoveling a pile of symbolic dirt. Pomp and circumstance aside, the true value in such an event are all of the things they’ve come to represent jobs, innovation, domestic production.

Not every groundbreaking works as intended. President Trump — who seemed to genuinely revel in any opportunity to don a hard hat — once touted a forthcoming Wisconsin Foxconn factory as the “the eighth wonder of the world.” The $10 billion project eventually became a $627 million one, as projected jobs dropped from 13,000 to 1,454.

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On the other hand, when President Biden invited Intel’s new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, to his March 1 State of the Union, the president had plenty of reason to celebrate. The silicon giant announced a $20 billion investment set to bring a pair of manufacturing plants just outside of Columbus, Ohio — and with them, 7,000 construction jobs and an eventual 3,000 permanent roles. The timing couldn’t have been better, as the nation faces down a perfect storm of unemployment concerns and chip shortages, on top of the decades-old trend of offshoring manufacturing

The administration celebrated the news as “another sign of the strength of the American economy.” In his speech, Biden waxed poetic about what a project represented, noting, “If you travel 20 miles east of Columbus, Ohio, you’ll find a thousand empty acres of land.  It won’t look like much. But if you stop and look closely, you’ll see a ‘field of dreams’ — the ground on which America’s future will be built.”

Intel tells TechCrunch that several cities were in contention for the manufacturing site, though it won’t disclose the specifics of those conversations, citing nondisclosure agreements. There are, undoubtedly, various reasons the Ohio capital ultimately made sense. For starters, there’s the very pragmatic concern of finding an area with enough space to accommodate a planned 1,000-acre campus with minimal impact on existing structures.

Beyond the basic land required, two other key factors came into play: local/state regulations and people. Speaking with TechCrunch, Keyvan Esfarjani, Intel’s executive vice president, chief global operations officer and general manager of Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Operations, explains, “You can have the best kind of regulatory environment and the best land for use, but you need to have a pipeline of talent. Columbus, Ohio, is a great place for diverse talent. It’s also around schools and has a population of folks that are very tied to the Midwest. They want to be there, they want to solve problems.”

The news arrives at a time when Columbus has entered the national spotlight as a high-tech …read more

https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/01/how-intel-landed-in-columbus/