In 2023, Intel walked away from a $3.3 billion chip project in Vietnam because the country had no mechanism to offer the cash support that Intel wanted, but in 2026, Intel returned to Vietnam with an additional investment of $2.6 billion, or $4.1 billion in total.
A $3.3 billion demand Vietnam could not meet
Intel once proposed a new chip production facility in Vietnam with a capital commitment of $3.3 billion, conditioned on the government covering fifteen percent of the upfront cost in cash, Vietnam’s former Ministry of Planning and Investment said in 2024. Vietnamese budget law at the time did not permit that kind of disbursement to a private enterprise.
Internal Vietnamese government documents noted similar cases, including LG Chemical and AT&S.
The $3.3 billion project went to Poland then canceled
In June 2023, Intel announced it would invest up to $4.6 billion in an assembly and test facility near Wrocław, Poland, expected to create 2,000 jobs. Poland approved a state aid package of roughly $1.9 billion, later confirmed by the European Commission. The same month, Intel and the German government signed a revised agreement expanding a separate wafer fabrication project in Magdeburg to more than thirty billion euros, backed by roughly ten billion euros in German state support.
Neither project broke ground.
In September 2024, then-CEO Pat Gelsinger announced both the Poland and Germany projects would be paused for at least two years. In July 2025, Intel confirmed both projects were cancelled.
The company’s second-quarter 2025 earnings document stated: “Intel will no longer move forward with planned projects in Germany and Poland. The company also intends to consolidate its assembly and test operations in Costa Rica into its larger sites in Vietnam and Malaysia.”
What Vietnam built instead
Vietnam adopted the global minimum tax (GMT), featuring the Qualified Domestic Minimum Top-up Tax (QDMTT), in 2024. The GMT requires large multinational groups to pay at least fifteen percent in effective tax rate on profits earned in the country. This neutralized the low preferential tax rates that Vietnam had offered foreign companies.
In December 2024, the government issued Decree 182/2024, establishing the Investment Support Fund. The fund partly offset the higher taxes per the GMT by providing support across five categories: workforce training; research and development; fixed asset investment; manufacturing of high-tech items; and social welfare investment.
The Ministry of Finance’s internal consultation documents describe enterprise requests in 2025 as “very high, far exceeding the financial resources of the Fund.” The ministry began drafting a replacement decree.
Intel’s proposed revisions
Intel Products Vietnam, the entity of Intel in Vietnam, submitted formal comments on the draft decree in early 2026. The company proposed a dedicated support category for semiconductor manufacturing at rates equivalent to the highest available tier (at up to 30 percent).
The Ministry of Finance accepted the suggestion and adjusted the latest draft decree.
From a few hundred employees when it opened in 2006, Intel now employs roughly 6,500 people. In 2025 alone it generated $11.67 billion in exports — 57 percent of total exports from Saigon Hi-Tech Park and about 12 percent of Ho Chi Minh City’s total export turnover. Intel has helped train close to ten thousand Vietnamese engineers and technicians and connected more than 600 local suppliers into its production chain.
On June 12, 2026, at a ceremony marking twenty years of operations in Vietnam, Intel announced an additional $2.6 billion investment, bringing its total committed capital in the country to $4.1 billion.
Chipmaker Intel to invest $2.6B more in Vietnam, $4.1B in total