Applied Materials opens $5B lab to speed AI chip development with partners

Applied Materials unveiled its $5 billion EPIC Center at its Sunnyvale, California, campus on October 12, 2026. The 600,000-square-foot facility houses nearly four acres of advanced cleanroom space and required more than six million construction hours to complete. Its foundation holds enough concrete to fill 34 Olympic-sized swimming pools and enough steel to build two Eiffel Towers, with 34 roof trusses each spanning nearly 300 feet and weighing as much as 12 school buses. The center puts chipmakers, equipment partners and university researchers alongside Applied scientists to develop materials, processes and tools in parallel instead of through sequential handoffs. Dr. Prabu Raja said EPIC is the only place where materials, process technology and equipment will be innovated in parallel, which increases the success rate of new materials and technologies. He hosted a summit on industry challenges; partner leaders attended the unveiling for a first look. CEO Gary Dickerson said AI infrastructure scaling is driving new complexity that requires re-engineered collaboration. Founding partners are TSMC, Intel, Samsung Electronics, Micron and SK hynix, with innovation partners Broadcom, Advantest, SCREEN, KIOXIA and Besi, and research partners Arizona State, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Stanford, UC Berkeley and UCLA Samueli.