Applied Materials and Intel have partnered at the EPIC Center to develop and accelerate manufacturing processes for advanced AI chips.
Applied Materials announced on October 6, 2026 that it is partnering with Intel to accelerate development of chipmaking innovations for next-generation transistors, interconnects, and advanced packaging technologies. The collaboration links Applied's EPIC Center in Silicon Valley with Intel's research and development campus in Hillsboro, Oregon, aimed at shortening time-to-market for advanced semiconductor technologies essential to AI computing. The partnership builds on the companies' decades-long history of collaboration on complex semiconductor device scaling challenges.
**Joint Work on Logic, Interconnects and Packaging**
Teams from both companies are collaborating on next-generation materials, process technologies, and device architectures for advanced logic nodes targeting AI workloads at the EPIC Center. The collaboration spans front-end and back-end-of-line advancements, including interconnect scaling and advanced packaging technologies for Foveros-based 3D stacking. According to Applied, the packaging work supports higher interconnect density, improved power delivery, and enhanced thermal performance for high-performance compute platforms designed to accelerate emerging agentic AI workloads.
**Executive Perspectives**
Applied Materials President and CEO Gary Dickerson said: "Bringing our teams together at the EPIC Center will deepen that partnership and accelerate the transistor, interconnect and packaging innovations needed to drive the future of AI computing."
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan noted that demand for AI computing is driving the need for major advances in performance, power efficiency, and packaging. "Applied Materials is an important partner, and we look forward to expanding our work together at the EPIC Center to help accelerate the path from the lab to high-volume manufacturing in the United States," he said.
Dr. Prabu Raja, President of the Semiconductor Products Group at Applied Materials, identified Intel as a founding partner of the EPIC Center and emphasized that chipmaking roadmaps are becoming more complex at each process node, requiring deeper collaboration across research, development, and manufacturing to shorten development cycles.
Naga Chandrasekaran, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology and Operations Officer and General Manager of Intel Foundry, said accelerating Intel's research and development to keep pace with rapid AI infrastructure buildout is critical. He noted that the EPIC Center provides an environment for closer, higher-velocity collaboration on materials development and process innovations.
**The EPIC Center**
Applied Materials first announced the EPIC Center (formally the Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization Center) on May 22, 2023, describing it as designed to reduce time-to-market from early-stage research to full-scale manufacturing. The facility, located at an Applied campus in Silicon Valley, includes more than 180,000 square feet of cleanroom for collaborative innovation with chipmakers, universities, and ecosystem partners. For the first time, chipmakers gained dedicated space inside an equipment supplier's facility to extend their in-house pilot lines and work with next-generation technologies before deploying them at their own sites.
Applied projected in 2023 that it would make gross incremental capital investments of up to $4 billion over seven years to build the center, expected to be completed by early 2026. The company anticipated the center would become the nexus of more than $25 billion in research and development investments during its first 10 years of operations, create up to 2,000 new engineering jobs in Silicon Valley, and that the project was contingent upon U.S. government support through the CHIPS and Science Act. Companies including AMD, IBM, Intel, Micron, Nvidia, Samsung, TSMC, and Western Digital commented on the launch. Applied stated the center was scheduled to be operationally ready in 2026.