The 28,000 square-metre (301,280 square feet) facility to be built in the city's Pudong area adds to Intel's existing production plant in Shanghai and highlights the increasingly central role China is playing in the production of electronics.

The Shanghai centre will focus on the development of chip-related products and on customer services, Xinhua news said, citing Intel Corp. vice president Siew Hai Wong.

Since 1997, the US-based company has pumped some 500 million dollars into its semiconductor plant in Shanghai.

Intel on Thursday said it had begun building a 375 million-dollar facility in China's southwestern Sichuan province.

SPACE.WIRE