U.S. to announce big grants for chip plants by end of March

The awards — slated to go to Intel Corp. and other chipmakers — are a central piece of the 2022 Chips and Science Act, which set aside $39 billion in direct grants to revitalize US manufacturing.

Intel has said that the grants will determine how quickly it progresses with expansion projects, including a planned facility in Ohio that would be the world’s largest. Overseas chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung Electronics Co. also are expected to get a portion of the funds, helping them pay for factories in the US.

The money has been slow to trickle out so far, with only two small grants announced more than a year after Biden signed the landmark initiative into law. The effort, aimed at rebalancing what’s seen in Washington as a dangerous concentration of production in East Asia, is a key pillar of Biden’s economic message heading into the November election. It brings promises of thousands of well-paying factory jobs in new manufacturing hubs across the country.

The timing suggests the awards may be unveiled before President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on March 7. Spokespeople for the White House and Intel declined to comment.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has said her agency plans to make about a dozen awards this year, including several multibillion-dollar grants to support advanced chipmaking facilities. The awards, which could come as a combination of grants, loans and loan guarantees, will cover up to 15% of project costs. The Commerce Department declined to comment.

For chipmakers, the disbursements will help cushion the financial impact of building facilities that can cost as much as $30 billion and yet be obsolete within a decade. Semiconductor companies…