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Irish construction firms working on projects abroad amid planning snarl-ups
Irish construction firms working on projects abroad amid planning snarl-ups

Irish Times

time13 hours ago

  • Business
  • Irish Times

Irish construction firms working on projects abroad amid planning snarl-ups

Irish builders are increasingly deploying resources towards big international projects and away from the domestic sector, the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) has said, due to uncertainty in the infrastructure pipeline here amid planning snarl-ups. The lobby group's latest outlook survey for the sector reveals that one in four big construction firms in the Republic are currently exporting their services. Of the more than 220 builders the CIF surveyed, slightly over half said their export revenues had remained stable in the first quarter of the year compared with the previous three months. A significant 31 per cent, however, said export revenues had increased compared with the first three months of 2025. Almost half of the construction firms surveyed said they anticipate a jump in export revenues in the second quarter. READ MORE Data centres and pharmaceutical plants were the most common foreign projects that Irish construction companies delivered in the first quarter of the year, according to the survey results. CIF director general Hubert Fitzpatrick said the research evinces a clear trend within the industry to redeploy resources to international projects 'due to persistent uncertainty in Ireland's infrastructure pipeline'. Mr Fitzpatrick said workforce capacity within the sector is not 'a limiting factor' to delivering Irish projects, despite public commentary to the contrary. Rather, the 'key barriers' to companies delivering projects in the Republic 'lie outside the industry, with persistent planning delays, a lack of zoned land and slow delivery of enabling infrastructure like water and electricity'. Mr Fitzpatrick said: 'Irish construction companies want to work in Ireland and deliver for the population. It is in the national interest that constraints, particularly around planning and funding, are removed by Government to unlock vital construction projects. 'The sector has the labour capacity and capability to deliver critical major infrastructure, including water, energy, new housing, transport, educational and commercial development. But consistent roadblocks mean that for many companies, a reliable pipeline of work is not available in Ireland.' Just 29 per cent of construction firms surveyed reported a year-on-year increase in new orders in the first three months of 2025, with half of respondents in the civil engineering and infrastructure subsectors saying new orders fell. All other sectors, including residential and commercial construction, expect an uplift in new orders in the second quarter, but smaller firms are generally less positive about their prospects. Almost half of the respondents said the pricing of projects had increased year-on-year, while 41 per cent expect further growth in the three months to the end of June. Six in 10 builders told CIF they also expect the cost of raw materials to increase in the second quarter of the year.

A timeline of the US semiconductor market in 2025
A timeline of the US semiconductor market in 2025

TechCrunch

timea day ago

  • Business
  • TechCrunch

A timeline of the US semiconductor market in 2025

It's already been a tumultuous year for the U.S. semiconductor industry. The semiconductor industry plays a sizable role in the 'AI race' that the U.S. seems determined to win, which is why this context is worth paying attention to: from Intel's appointment of Lip-Bu Tan to CEO — who wasted no time getting to work trying to revitalize the legacy company — to Joe Biden proposing sweeping new AI chip export rules on his way out of office that never came to fruition. Here's a look at what's happened in the first half of 2025. June Intel appoints new leadership June 18 – Intel announced four new leadership appointments that Intel says will help it move toward its goal of becoming an engineering-first company again. Intel announced a new chief revenue officer in addition to multiple high-profile engineering hires. Intel to begin layoffs June 17 – Intel will begin to lay off a significant chunk of its Intel Foundry staff in July. The company plans to eliminate at least 15%, and up to 20%, of workers in that business unit. These layoffs aren't a shock: It was rumored back in April, and Intel's CEO Lip-Bu Tan has said he wants to flatten the organization. Nvidia won't report on China June 13 – Nvidia isn't counting on the U.S. backing off of its AI chip export restrictions anytime soon. After the company took a financial hit from the newly imposed licensing requirements on its H20 AI chips, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company will no longer include the Chinese market in future revenue and profit forecasts. AMD acquires the team behind Untether AI June 6 – AMD makes another acquisition — this time focused on talent. The company acqui-hired the team behind Untether AI, which develops AI inference chips, as the semiconductor giant continues to round out its AI offerings. Techcrunch event Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW AMD is coming for Nvidia's AI hardware dominance June 4 – AMD continued its shopping spree. The company acquired AI software optimization startup Brium, which helps companies retrofit AI software to work with different AI hardware. With a lot of AI software being designed with Nvidia hardware in mind, this acquisition isn't surprising. May Nvidia lays out the impact of chip export restrictions May 28 – Nvidia reported that U.S. licensing requirements on its H20 AI chips cost the company $4.5 billion in charges during Q1. The company expects these requirements to result in an $8 billion hit to Nvidia's revenue in Q2. AMD acquires Enosemi May 28 – AMD kicks off its acquisition spree. The semiconductor company announced that it acquired Enosemi, a silicon photonics startup. Enosemi's tech, which uses light photons to transmit data, is becoming an increasing area of interest for semiconductor companies. Tensions start to flare between China and the U.S. May 21 – China's Commerce Secretary didn't like the U.S.'s guidance, issued on May 13, that warned U.S. companies that using Huawei's AI chips 'anywhere in the world' was a U.S. chip export violation. The commerce secretary issued a statement that threatened legal action against anyone caught enforcing that export restriction. Intel may be starting to offload its non-core units May 20 – Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan seemingly got right to work on his plan to spin out Intel's non-core business units. The semiconductor giant is reportedly looking to offload its networking and edge units, which makes chips for telecom equipment, and was responsible for $5.4 billion of the company's 2024 revenue. The Biden administration's AI Diffusion rule is officially dead May 13 – Just days before the Biden administration's Artificial Intelligence Diffusion Rule was set to go into place, the U.S. Department of Commerce formally rescinded it. The DOC said that it plans to issue new guidance in the future, and in the meantime companies should remember that using Huawei's Ascend AI chips anywhere in the world is a violation of U.S. export rules. A last-minute reversal May 7: Just a week before the 'Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion' was set to go into place, the Trump administration plans on taking a different path. According to multiple media outlets, including Axios and Bloomberg, the administration won't enforce the restrictions when they were supposed to start on May 15 and is instead working on its own framework. April Anthropic doubles down on its support of chip export restrictions April 30: Anthropic doubled down on its support for restricting U.S.-made chip exports, including some tweaks to the Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, like imposing further restrictions on Tier 2 countries and dedicating resources to enforcement. An Nvidia spokesperson shot back, saying, 'American firms should focus on innovation and rise to the challenge, rather than tell tall tales that large, heavy, and sensitive electronics are somehow smuggled in 'baby bumps' or 'alongside live lobsters.'' Planned layoffs at Intel April 22: Ahead of its Q1 earnings call, Intel said it was planning to lay off more than 21,000 employees. The layoffs were meant to streamline management, something CEO Lip-Bu Tan has long said Intel needed to do, and help rebuild the company's engineering focus. The Trump administration further restricts chip exports April 15: Nvidia's H20 AI chip got hit with an export licensing requirement, the company disclosed in an SEC filing. The company added it expects $5.5 billion in charges related to this new requirement in the first quarter of its 2026 fiscal year. The H20 is the most advanced AI chip Nvidia can still export to China in some form or fashion. TSMC and Intel reported similar expenses the same week. Nvidia appears to talk its way out of further chip exports April 9: Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang was spotted attending dinner at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, according to reports. At the time, NPR reported Huang may have been able to spare Nvidia's H20 AI chips from export restrictions upon agreeing to invest in AI data centers in the U.S. An alleged agreement between Intel and TSMC April 3: Intel and TSMC allegedly reached a tentative agreement to launch a joint chipmaking venture. This joint venture would operate Intel's chipmaking facilities, and TSMC would have a 20% stake in the new venture. Both companies declined to comment or confirm. If this deal doesn't come to fruition, this is likely a decent preview of potential deals in this industry to come. Intel spins off noncore assets, announces new initiative April 1: CEO Lip-Bu Tan got to work right away. Just weeks after he joined Intel, the company announced that it was going to spin off noncore assets so it could focus. He also said the company would launch new products, including custom semiconductors for customers. March Intel names a new CEO March 12: Intel announced that industry veteran, and former board member, Lip-Bu Tan would return to the company as CEO on March 18. At the time of his appointment, Tan said Intel would be an 'engineering-focused company' under his leadership. February Intel's Ohio chip plant gets delayed again February 28: Intel was supposed to start operating its first chip fabrication plant in Ohio this year. Instead, the company slowed down construction on the plant for the second time in February. Now the $28 billion semiconductor project won't wrap up construction until 2030 and may not even open until 2031. Senators call for more chip export restrictions February 3: U.S. senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo), wrote a letter to Commerce Secretary Nominee-Designate Howard Lutnick urging the Trump administration to further restrict AI chip exports. The letter specifically referred to Nvidia's H20 AI chips, which were used in the training of DeepSeek's R1 'reasoning' model. January DeepSeek releases its open 'reasoning' model January 27: Chinese AI startup DeepSeek caused quite the stir in Silicon Valley when it released the open version of its R1 'reasoning' model. While this isn't semiconductor news specifically, the sheer alarm in the AI and semiconductor industries DeepSeek's release caused continues to have ripple effects on the chip industry. Joe Biden's executive order on chip exports January 13: With just a week left in office, former president Joe Biden proposed sweeping new export restrictions on U.S.-made AI chips. This order created a three-tier structure that determined how many U.S. chips can be exported to each country. Under this proposal, Tier 1 countries faced no restrictions; Tier 2 countries had a chip purchase limit for the first time; and Tier 3 countries got additional restrictions. Anthropic's Dario Amodei weighs in on chip export restrictions January 6: Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei co-wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal endorsing existing AI chip export controls and pointing to them as a reason why China's AI market was behind the U.S.'. He also called on incoming president Donald Trump to impose further restrictions and to close loopholes that have allowed AI companies in China to still get their hands on these chips.

Egypt: SCZone, ULUSOY Tekstil ink $18mln deal to establish yarn manufacturing project in Qantara West
Egypt: SCZone, ULUSOY Tekstil ink $18mln deal to establish yarn manufacturing project in Qantara West

Zawya

timea day ago

  • Business
  • Zawya

Egypt: SCZone, ULUSOY Tekstil ink $18mln deal to establish yarn manufacturing project in Qantara West

Arab Finance: The Chairman of the General Authority of the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) Waleid Gamal El-Dien signed a contract with Turkish company ULUSOY Tekstil San. Tic. A.? to establish a yarn and thread manufacturing project in the Qantara West Industrial Zone, as per a statement. The factory will span 35,000 square meters, with investments amounting to $18 million, approximately EGP 902 million. It is expected to provide around 855 direct job opportunities. The project will produce a variety of yarns, including carpet yarns, hand-knitting yarns, knitting yarns, and crochet yarns, as well as garments, with 80% of production allocated for export and 20% for the local market. Gamal El-Dien emphasized that spinning and weaving projects continue to consolidate Qantara West's position as a regional hub for the yarn and ready-made garment industries. He noted the area's strategic location, connected infrastructure, and integrated supply chains as key enablers for attracting specialized, export-oriented investments. With this latest addition, the number of contracted projects in Qantara West has reached 24, bringing total investments to $661.5 million and generating 34,455 direct job opportunities. The initiative is part of the authority's broader strategy to support export industries, deepen local manufacturing, and localize supply chains, enhancing the industrial sector's contribution to Egypt's gross domestic product (GDP). ULUSOY Tekstil, founded in Turkiya in 1986, operates two major industrial facilities and is considered one of Europe's largest producers of luxury yarns, with a monthly output exceeding 1,000 tons exported globally. © 2020-2023 Arab Finance For Information Technology. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (

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