RECORD QUARTERLY revenues of $11.1 billion (€7.95 billion) reported by Intel have renewed speculation that the computer chipmaker will make a new capital investment at its plant in Leixlip, Co Kildare.

Paul Otellini, Intel chief executive, said the record revenue and net profit of $2.9 billion was driven by strong demand from large businesses and growth in emerging markets.

Mr Otellini forecast that Intel revenue in the last quarter of this year was likely to be in the range of $11 billion to $11.8 billion.

Intel’s Irish operations have been vying to attract fresh investment from the parent corporation for the last number of years. The last major investment won for Leixlip was the $2 billion that went into the Fab24-2 factory, announced in May 2004.

Over the last year preparatory work has been carried out on the older Fab-14 facility to prepare it for a new production line.

Local management are understood to be very hopeful that a capital investment is imminent now that money has been spent preparing the factory.

Production lines for older products that were less important to Intel closed in 2009 with the loss of 300 jobs.

This month Israel’s finance ministry confirmed a grant of about €135 million to Intel in exchange for an investment of almost €2 billion in local factories by the chipmaker. Although Leixlip is Intel’s largest factory outside the US, investments by the corporation in Israel have been viewed as being at the expense of Irish expansion.