Applied Materials Unveils $5 Billion EPIC Center for AI Chip Research

Applied Materials unveiled its $5 billion EPIC Center in Sunnyvale, California, on Oct. 12, creating a semiconductor research facility aimed at accelerating artificial intelligence chip development.

The 600,000-square-foot center will bring chipmakers, equipment suppliers and university researchers together to speed work on semiconductor technologies. The facility is designed to move research toward commercialization as AI systems require greater memory density, capacity and performance.

Applied Materials announced EPIC in May 2023 with plans to invest up to $4 billion over seven years. The company later raised its expected investment to about $5 billion as customer projects got underway.

Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Broadcom, Japan-based equipment maker SCREEN and the University of California, Berkeley are among the collaborators. Kioxia is also working with Applied Materials at EPIC on AI memory technologies, including new memory cells and structures, multichip stacking and advanced packaging.

The collaboration with Kioxia builds on work to improve memory capacity and performance within space and cost constraints. The teams are also focused on materials, equipment and manufacturing processes that can support commercial production.

Applied Materials’ EPIC Center is intended to address the technical complexity and cost of increasing memory density while helping research move from development into manufacturing.