Intel’s Ohio “mega fab” expansion grabbed headlines last week, but the project’s future is deeply intertwined with the CHIPs for America Act.

The latest revision of the $52 billion bill was introduced by the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week and aims to bolster domestic semiconductor supply chains while reducing reliance on the Asia Pacific foundry operators like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and Samsung Electronics.

“We were very excited to see the progress on the CHIPs act,” Gelsinger told investors earlier this week. “With the CHIPS Act going on the floor of the House, we’re highly encouraged.”

Intel has officially committed $20 billion to construct a pair of leading-edge chip fabs on the 1,000 square-foot site over the next three years. However, Intel could spend north of $100 billion on as many as eight fabs over the next decade, pending U.S. taxpayer support.

“With the passage of the CHIPs act, it [the Ohio fab site] is going to be bigger and we’re going to build it faster as a result. We think that’s good for our company. Even more important, it’s good for our nation as we rebuilt a resilient, globally balanced supply chain,” Gelsinger said.

During a press conference late last week, Gelsinger stressed the CHIPs Act’s importance and pleaded for U.S. lawmakers to pass it quickly.

“We’ve seen the disruptions to our global supply chain. The demand for semiconductors is truly unprecedented today. And many industries, many factories, auto manufacturers are stopped because of a $2 chip,” Gelsinger said at the time. “We need Congress to quickly and affirmatively act to finish the CHIPs Act and get it funded.”

With or without U.S. subsidies, Intel plans to invest heavily to grow its fledgling Intel Foundry Services (IFS) business unit.

“Our IFS business continues to see strong and enthusiastic customer support,” Gelsinger said. “We have a strong pipeline for potential customers and [intellectual property] development with the ecosystem is progressing as well.”

In 2021 alone, the company committed to $23.5 billion in capex spending which included the construction of two new fabs on its Arizona campus and a retrofit of its historic New Mexico foundry.

“If you look back at the 2021 capex split, it was roughly 60% equipment, 40% space build out,” newly appointed CFO David Zinsner told analysts.

Intel has some catching up to do when it comes to building out its capital footprint, Gelsinger admitted, adding the Ohio and Arizona expansions are only the beginning. Intel is expected to up the ante yet again later this year pending the passage of a similar European chips bill, expected to be introduced early next month.

Despite these investments, Intel Foundry Services remains years away from supplying leading-edge chips to contract customers.

“To be able to put the capital in place in 2024, 2025, you have to build the shelves in 2022, 2023,” Gelsinger told analysts in response to questions.

Intel’s Arizona fabs are expected to come online in late 2024, while the first of its Ohio fabs are slated to open in 2025, alongside the launch of Intel’s upcoming 20a and 18a process nodes, announced last summer.

Riding high on last week’s foundry expansion, Intel posted its strongest quarter ever, exceeding fourth-quarter revenue guidance by more than $1 billion.

In Q4, the chipmaker netted $4.6 billion in net income on $20.5 billion in fourth-quarter revenues, driven by strong demand for the company’s data center, IoT, and FPGA product lines. However, the company saw declines across its Client Computing Group for a second consecutive quarter, with Q4 revenues down 7% to $10.1 billion from the year prior.

Meanwhile, the company’s Data Center Group, once Intel's bread and butter, continued its rebound in Q4, growing 20% year over year to $7.3 billion. Likewise, Intel’s IoT group surged 36% over the previous year to $1.1 billion in revenue, while the chipmaker’s Platform Services Group, which includes its FPGA business, grew 15% to $484 million.

For full-year 2021, Intel netted just shy of 20 billion in net income on $79 billion in revenues. Heading into the first fiscal quarter of 2022, Intel projects revenues of $18.3 billion.