Intel and TSMC are sharing research space at Applied Materials' EPIC Center, according to a Tech Times report. The two companies, both major players in advanced chip manufacturing, now have engineering teams working on the same equipment-vendor research floor in a configuration that highlights Applied Materials' role as a neutral process-development host.

Why does a third-party lab matter?

Applied Materials ranks among the largest suppliers of wafer fabrication equipment globally, shipping deposition, etch, inspection and metrology systems to most commercial fabs. Its EPIC Center serves as a development hub where customer engineers and Applied Materials' R&D staff co-develop the next generation of manufacturing tools. Customer teams based at the center run wafer experiments on prototype equipment months before the same tools would be qualified inside a production fab. That lead time cuts months of trial-cycle delay for each foundry.

What changes when two competitors share a vendor's floor?

The arrangement converts the EPIC Center from a customer-demonstration site into a vendor-neutral development venue. Applied Materials gains closer visibility into the process roadmaps of both companies. Each foundry gets earlier access to prototype deposition and etch systems than it would inside its own fab. Intel and TSMC can also iterate on tool performance in parallel, with Applied Materials engineering mediating the schedule.

Running two competing customers in the same physical space requires strict IP controls. Clean-room zoning, separate tool allocations, and segregated data networks keep each foundry's process recipes out of reach of the other. Applied Materials has built its commercial relationships on that discipline for decades. Both Intel and TSMC buy process tools from multiple vendors, and each one expects the supplier to treat its roadmap as confidential.

How does this fit the foundry industry's current trajectory?

Chipmaking capital costs have climbed sharply with each new process node. A leading-edge fab now costs tens of billions of dollars to build out, and equipment expenses dominate the budget. Foundries respond by outsourcing more early-stage process research to vendors, where prototype tools are already installed, qualified, and supported by full-time engineers. The EPIC Center, alongside similar development sites operated by ASML and Lam Research, captures a growing share of that work.

Intel has been rebuilding its foundry business and has signaled a willingness to deepen ties with external process partners. TSMC, which operates the largest contract chipmaking operation in the world, has historically kept process development inside its own fabs. The shared-floor arrangement suggests TSMC is now willing to trade some autonomy for early tool access at a vendor's lab.

What the Tech Times report does not specify

The Tech Times report does not state when the shared arrangement began, how many engineers each company has on site, or which process nodes the two foundries are working on at the EPIC Center. The report also does not include direct executive quotes or financial terms tied to the partnership.

Bottom line

Two direct competitors now work on the same research floor at Applied Materials' EPIC Center, with Applied Materials serving as a neutral host. The arrangement reinforces the vendor's commercial ties to both companies and signals that leading foundries will share physical R&D space when the IP controls hold.