President Biden is expected to sign a bill this week granting $3.5 billion to Intel to be used to produce advanced chips for security to be used for US military and intelligence programs, according to reports.
Bloomberg first reported the funds are part of a spending plan that passed the US House on Wednesday, citing congressional aides.
The funding would span over three years to be used for a secure enclave initiative and is part of the larger $39 billion CHIPS and Science Act grant program. Intel has long been expected to get more than $10 billion in CHIPS Act funds, but so far the Commerce Department has not announced any grant nearly as large.
TSMC and Samsung are also seeking multibillion dollar grants under the CHIPS Act, as they and Intel are planning to build large semiconductor fabs in the US.
The Department of Defense has separately granted $238 million to eight regional tech hubs that will focus on chips for defense uses.
The $3.5 billion award would position Intel as a major defense supplier, moving it further into an area that it has shared for years alongside chips for servers and personal computers. Most recently, Intel has pushed into its AI Everything initiative to provide CPUs and GPUs for future AI needs, but the technology Intel would use for a DoD secure element initiative has not been described in detail.