Comment by mbreese

As far as I have read, even with themselves as the primary customer, there is still enough excess capacity to make it unprofitable to use the most advanced processes. I see it as a strict cost issue — the new fab costs $X to run. Intel can only keep it running Y% of the time with its own orders. You need someone to fill in the gap. Not to mention, at the moment the entire cost of an Intel fab is being amortized across only Intel chips. If they can spread that out to external customers, then they can start to make their CPUs more cost competitive (or better margins, or both).

Plus, if the goal is to make more chips domestically (of all kinds), Intel will need to show that they can fab chips for other customers, not just their own designs.