Intel has started installing equipment at Fab 62, its new chip plant near Phoenix, which is due to open in early 2028.
The company has also raised the first major roof truss, a structural support beam, at its long-delayed site in Ohio. Both milestones arrive while demand for Intel's data center processors, the chips that run cloud and AI servers, is outpacing supply.
The two sites are at very different stages. Moving equipment into a fab (short for fabrication plant) means the building is far enough along to host the machines that actually make chips. A first roof truss at the Ohio site is a structural step that comes much earlier. Phoenix is the project that looks close to producing something. Ohio has been delayed for a long time and is still visibly under construction.
That gap matters because of the timing. A plant opening in early 2028 cannot relieve a shortage that exists now, and Intel is short of data center chips today. Whatever it sells in the meantime comes from factories already running. The new capacity is a bet on what the market will look like once these plants are finished.
For a company that has spent years explaining delays, visible construction is a more useful signal than another timeline. Intel has now shown progress on both US sites, though only one of them has a date attached.