Intel Cancels Plans for Sustainable Data Center R&D Facility in Oregon

The Robert Noyce Building in Santa Clara, California, is the world headquarters for Intel Corporation. This photo is from Jan. 23, 2019. (Credit: Walden Kirsch/Intel Corporation)

(Credit: Walden Kirsch/Intel Corporation) On the heels of a rough few quarters for Intel, the company has announced the cancellation of a super-sized R&D lab at its current Hillsboro campus. The proposed facility would have allowed Intel to research sustainable data centers, including innovative methods for heating, cooling, and water usage. The new 200,000-square-foot “mega lab” was announced last May by CEO Pat Gelsinger. Nixing the research center will save the company approximately $700 million.

“We are looking to reduce costs and increase efficiencies through multiple initiatives. This includes exploring more cost-effective real estate options to continue our data center R&D work in Oregon that is already in progress,” Intel spokesperson Penelope Bruce told Oregon Live. The spokesperson said the company will still find a way to do this research, and that it just won’t be at its Hillsboro facility, which is 20 miles from Portland.

This is part of a massive $3 billion in spending cuts for the company for 2023. Intel, like the rest of the industry, has seen falling revenues over the past year with no sign of it letting up any time soon. Its sales fell between 16 and 20 percent year-over-year from 2021 to 2022.

Artists rendering of the proposed R&D center for Intel. (Credit: Intel)

One of the hallmark technologies Intel was looking to build at the center was a massive liquid immersion cooling system for data centers. Though this form of cooling technology has been around for ages, it’s rarely been built at the scale needed for a data center. Intel was reportedly looking at building what The Register calls an “open reference design” other companies could use. With its new 4th gen “Sapphire Rapids” CPUs sucking up 350W, such elaborate cooling could be useful at some point in the future. The center would have been a so-called “tech showroom” for Intel to show off innovative technologies to its partners.

For now, it remains to be seen when or where Intel will build such a facility. One factor that might impede its future plans is inflation. The Register notes that the cost of the planned expansion at its Arizona fab has already increased 50% compared with prices a year ago. We wouldn’t be surprised if it just mothballed the idea permanently. Gelsinger has said it plans to reduce spending by $10 billion annually by 2025. That’s going to require some painful decisions.

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