Intel is planning to invest approximately $5.5bn in its facility in Dalian, China, to expand its manufacturing capacity in non-volatile memory.
Initial production of the 3D NAND technology is expected in the second half of next year. The expansion is part of the company’s multi-source supply strategy.
The Dalian plant has been in operation since 2010, manufacturing 65-nanometer products.
Intel has signed a partnership with Micron Technology to manufacture NAND flash memory chips, which will store data in mobile devices.
Earlier this year, the companies unveiled a new memory chip technology that is claimed to be 1000 times faster than NAND flash memory used in the majority of mobile devices.
Intel is working on bringing its Optane technology, based on 3D Xpoint, to market in Intel SSDs in 2016.
The company said the products have the potential to revolutionise any device, application or service that benefits from fast access to large sets of data.
Retailers may use Intel’s non-volatile memory products to rapidly find fraud detection patterns in financial transactions.
Intel said healthcare researchers could process and analyse larger data sets in real time, accelerating complex tasks like genetic analysis and disease tracking.
