The maxi plant that the Singaporean company Silicon Box he chose to make in Piedmontin Novara, with a investment of 3.2 billion of euros will be built south of the Amazon plant in Agognate, near the Novara Ovest toll booth on the A4 Milan – Turin motorway. This was revealed on Friday afternoon by the Mayor of Novara Alessandro Canelli at the end of the meeting at the Ministry.
Maxi plant in Novara
Canelli defined the choice to build in Novara as the maxi plant for the production of chiplets “a Copernican revolution that will change the city” because – he added – “a series of interventions in areas to be redeveloped have been included in the package, such as the one behind the train station intended for a residential and service area for those who will work in the plant”. Furthermore, the Silicon Box settlement “will influence the master plan by reducing projects such as the Pernate logistics project to limit land consumption”.
The agreement
The Minister of Business, Adolfo Urso, and the governor Alberto Cirio have signed an agreement with Silicon Box to build a chip factory in Novara. An investment of 3.2 billion and which will bring 1,600 direct jobs starting from 2028 (excluding related industries). But the hope is that a real microelectronics industrial district will be born around this factory. Silicon Box is a startup born three years ago in Singapore, and has already become a unicorn, that is, a company with more than a billion dollars in capital. Its product are i chiplets, i.e. small chips to be assembled togetherlike Lego bricks. A technology that makes semiconductors more efficient and less expensive, and which is particularly suited to artificial intelligence.
Silicon Box
Silicon Box was founded by husband and wife Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai, owners of the $57 billion US giant Marvell Technology, and Byung Joon Han, a former executive at China’s JCET. It already has a factory in Singapore, and the one in Novara will be its first in Europe. The plant will mainly satisfy the European demand for chips for artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and components for electric vehicles. “Silicon Box evaluated several locations in Italy, and the final choice fell on Novara – explained Minister Urso -. Piedmont already has other activities in the sector, and can become a semiconductor industrial hub. We are convinced that Italy can be one of the most important production hubs in Europe”. For President Cirio, the Novara factory represents “the old industrial triangle that takes revengethanks to our infrastructure and our ability to innovate. It is the first step towards building a Silicon Valley in Italy”.
