How 'Friendshoring' Made Southeast Asia Pivotal to the AI Revolution

Employees entering Intel's advanced PG8 foundry on the Malaysian island of Penang must take elaborate safety precautions. First, staff don blue shoe coverings, followed by a hairnet, plastic hood, facemask, bunny suit, latex gloves, and eye goggles. Finally, plastic boots are placed over those already-covered shoes with a special strap tucked into the wearer's socks to "ground" them. For it's not just a stray hair or skin flake that can be deadly to Intel's latest artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor chips--even the static shock from an unsuspecting pinky can measure 10,000 volts and fry their delicate circuitry. "Static is a unit killer," says Phynthamilkumaran Siea Dass, Intel's director of assembly test manufacturing in Penang, as he leads TIME through interlocked doors into PG8's cleanroom.