Created: Mar 30, 2026
Updated: Mar 30, 2026
A CPU (Central Processing Unit) is often called the "brain" of a computer. It’s the part of the computer that carries out instructions from programs and performs calculations. Whenever you open an app, play a video game, or browse the internet, the CPU processes the necessary data to make it happen. The CPU's speed and power help determine how fast and efficiently your computer runs.
This “Where is it made?” list includes companies that manufacture and/or design CPUs. Companies like Intel and AMD design their own CPUs, while others, like Apple, create custom CPUs but have them made by specialized manufacturers.
The list excludes TSMC, a manufacturing powerhouse that does not design CPUs itself, and Arm Holdings, which licenses CPU architecture rather than selling finished CPUs.
Below, you will find a list of the largest CPU-producing companies, where their main offices are located, whether their manufacturing is in-house or outsourced (fabless), and what kinds of chips they focus on.
PC and Server CPU Leaders
Intel
Legal name: Intel Corporation
Founded: July 18, 1968
Headquarters: Santa Clara, California, USA
Key Operations Centres: Santa Clara, USA; Mexico City, Mexico; Munich, Germany; Gdansk, Poland; Warsaw, Poland; Beijing, China;
R&D: Austin, Texas, USA; Costa Rica, USA; Massachusetts, USA; Guadalajara, Mexico; Shannon, Ireland; Haifa, Israel; Petah Tikvah, Israel; Bengaluru, India; Hyderabad, India; Penang, Malaysia; Kulim, Malaysia.
Manufacturing: Intel’s own fabrication plants (Fabs) are located in the USA in Chandler, Arizona; Rio Rancho, New Mexico; Hillsboro, Oregon; Leixlip, Ireland; Jerusalem, Israel; Kiryat Gat, Israel; and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Specializes in: Consumer, server, and workstation CPUs (e.g., Core, Xeon, Atom series).
Sources: Intel (Wikipedia), Intel manufacturing fabs, Intel Global Offices
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
Legal name: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Founded: May 1, 1969
Headquarters: Santa Clara, California, USA.
Key Operations Centres: USA, India, Taiwan, Singapore
R&D: Santa Clara, California; Austin, Texas; other USA facilities; Bengaluru, India; Hyderabad, India; Penang, Malaysia; Toronto, Canada; Ottawa, Canada; Waterloo, Canada; Vancouver, Canada; Dublin, Ireland; Cork, Ireland; Edinburgh, UK; Cambridge, UK; Munich, Germany; sites in Finland.
Manufacturing: Outsourced to GlobalFoundries (Singapore and USA) and TSMC (Taiwan).
Specializes in: Consumer and server processors (e.g., Ryzen, EPYC, Threadripper)
Sources: AMD Corporate Locations, AMD (Wikipedia)
Mobile / Consumer System-on-chip CPU Designers
Apple
Legal name: Apple Inc.
Founded: April 1, 1976
Headquarters: Cupertino, California, Silicon Valley, USA.
Key Operations Centres: Cupertino, California; Los Angeles, California; Austin, Texas; Cork, Ireland; Shanghai, China; Singapore.
R&D: Cupertino, California; San Diego, California; Austin, Texas; Herzliya, Israel; Shanghai, China; Shenzhen, China; Munich, Germany; Cambridge, UK.
Manufacturing: Outsourced to TSMC (Taiwan).
Specializes in: ARM-based processors for consumer electronics (e.g., M1, M2 chips).
Sources: Apple (Wikipedia), Work at Apple Locations
Qualcomm Incorporated
Legal name: Qualcomm Incorporated
Founded: 1 July 1985.
Headquarters: San Diego, California, USA.
Key Operations Centres: San Diego, California.
R&D: San Diego, USA; Austin, USA; Santa Clara, USA; Boulder, USA; Cork, Ireland; Dublin, Ireland; Hyderabad, India; Bengaluru, India; Chennai, India; Hanoi, Vietnam; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Nuremberg, Germany; Issy-les-Moulineaux, France.
Manufacturing: Outsourced to TSMC (Taiwan), Samsung (Snapdragon chips).
Specializes in: ARM-based processors for mobile devices (e.g., Snapdragon series)
Sources: Qualcomm (Wikipedia), Qualcomm Offices Locations, Qualcomm Locations
MediaTek Inc.
Legal name: MediaTek Inc.
Founded: 28 May 1997
Headquarters: Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Key Operations Centres: Hsinchu, Taiwan.
R&D: Bengaluru, India; Noida, India; Beijing, China; Shanghai, China; Shenzhen, China; Chengdu, China; Oulu, Finland; Linköping, Sweden; San Jose, United States.
Manufacturing: Outsourced to TSMC (Taiwan).
Specializes in: ARM-based processors for smartphones, smart TVs, IoT (e.g., Dimensity series).
Sources: MediaTek (Wikipedia), MediaTek Global Locations
Embedded / Industrial CPU Leaders
Renesas Electronics
Legal name: Renesas Electronics Corporation
Founded: November 1, 2002, as Renesas Technology and April 1, 2010, as Renesas Electronics.
Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan.
Key Operations Centres: Tokyo, Japan; Düsseldorf, Germany.
R&D: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Beijing, China; Penang, Malaysia.
Manufacturing: Multiple in-house fabs in Japan.
Specializes in: Microcontrollers and SoCs for automotive and industrial applications.
Sources: Renesas Electronics (Wikipedia), Renesas Global Operations
STMicroelectronics
Legal name: STMicroelectronics N.V.
Founded: 1987
Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.
Key Operations Centres: Geneva, Switzerland (Corporate headquarters); Saint-Genis-Pouilly, France; Paris, France; Coppell, Texas (US headquarters); Singapore (Headquarters for the Asia-Pacific region); Tokyo (Headquarters for Japan and Korea operations); Shanghai (Headquarters for China operations).
R&D: Grenoble, France; Rousset, France; Tours, France; Milan, Italy; Catania, Italy.
Manufacturing: In-house manufacturing in Grenoble, France; Rousset, France; Tours, France; Milan, Italy; Catania, Italy; Caserta, Italy; Kirkop, Malta; Singapore; Tunis, Tunisia; Bouskoura, Morocco; Norrköping, Sweden.
Specializes in: Embedded processors; microcontrollers, semiconductor solutions for automotive, industrial, consumer electronics, and IoT sectors, and connectivity chips.
Sources: STMicroelectronics (Wikipedia)
Texas Instruments
Legal name: Texas Instruments Incorporated
Founded: 1951 as Texas Instruments; 1930 as Geophysical Service Incorporated.
Headquarters: Dallas, Texas, USA.
Key Operations Centres: USA, China, Japan; Freising, Germany.
R&D: Sugar Land, Texas; Santa Clara, California; Tucson, Arizona; Manchester, New Hampshire; Freising, Germany; Finland; Israel; Norway; China; India; Japan; South Korea; Taiwan.
Manufacturing: In-house manufacturing in Dallas, Texas; Richardson, Texas; Sherman, Texas; Lehi, Utah; South Portland, Maine; Mexico; Freising, Germany; China; Japan; Malaysia; Philippines; Taiwan.
Specializes in: Industrial and digital signal processors.
Sources: Texas Instruments (Wikipedia), Texas Instruments Locations
NXP Semiconductors
Legal name: NXP Semiconductors N.V.
Founded: 2006.
Headquarters: High Tech Campus, Eindhoven, Netherlands.
Key Operations Centres: Eindhoven, Netherlands; San Jose, California; Singapore.
R&D: Eindhoven; Nijmegen; San Jose, California; Austin, Texas; Chandler, Arizona; San Diego; Novi, Michigan; Kanata, Ontario; Gratkorn; Milan; Catania; Leuven; Delft; Brno; Rožnov pod Radhoštěm; Bucharest; Caen; Mougins; Toulouse; Grenoble; Sophia Antinopolis; Dresden; Hamburg; Munich; Southampton; Glasgow; Yokneam Ilit; Bengaluru, India; Pune, India; Hyderabad, India; Noida, India.
Manufacturing: Mixes in-house fabs in Chandler, Arizona, USA; Austin, Texas, USA; Nijmegen, Netherlands; Singapore, with outsourcing manufacturing to other foundries.
Specializes in: Automotive processors, networking, and security chips.
Sources: NXP Semiconductors (Wikipedia)
Data Center / HPC / AI CPU Designers
NVIDIA
Legal name: NVIDIA Corporation
Founded: 5 April 1993
Headquarters: Santa Clara, California, USA
Key Operations Centres: USA, Taiwan, China, India
R&D: Generative AI, multimodal learning, and 3D vision - Taiwan; Robotics - Seattle, USA; 3D Deep Learning - Toronto, Canada; Dynamic Vision and Learning - Munich, Germany; Perception, Action, and Reasoning Lab - Israel; Real-Time Graphics Research - Europe and North America; High-Fidelity Physics Research - Asia, Europe, and North America.
Manufacturing: Outsourced to TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung (USA and South Korea).
Specializes in: AI and accelerated computing
Sources: NVIDIA (Wikipedia), NVIDIA Research Labs
IBM
Legal name: International Business Machines Corporation (IBM)
Founded: 16 June 1911 (founded as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company; renamed IBM in 1924)
Headquarters: Armonk, New York, USA.
Key Operations Centres: Armonk (headquarters), USA; Poughkeepsie (primary manufacturing and R&D center for IBM Z mainframes and storage systems), USA; Rochester (servers), USA; Austin (cloud, AI, and software development), USA; Germany; Switzerland; UK; Japan; India.
R&D: Main R&D labs in Yorktown Heights, New York (IBM Research headquarters), USA; Silicon Valley, California; Cambridge, USA; Bengaluru, India; Gurgaon, India; Ireland; Israel; Japan; Zurich, Switzerland.
Manufacturing: IBM outsources fabrication to GlobalFoundries (Singapore and the USA) and Samsung (the USA and South Korea). (Historically, IBM manufactured its own semiconductor chips; however, it sold the manufacturing division to Global Foundries in 2015.)
Specializes in: High-performance CPUs for enterprise servers and supercomputing.
Sources: IBM (Wikipedia), IBM Labs
High-Growth Cloud CPU Player
Ampere Computing
Legal name: Ampere Computing LLC.
Founded: 2017.
Headquarters: Santa Clara, California, USA.
Key Operations Centres: Santa Clara, California; Portland, Oregon; Warsaw, Poland; Shanghai, China.
R&D: Bangalore, India; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Taipei, Taiwan; Shanghai, China.
Manufacturing: Outsourcing to TSMC.
Specializes in: Cloud infrastructure processors.
Source: Ampere Computing Official Website, Ampere Computing (Wikipedia)
A CPU (Central Processing Unit) is often called the "brain" of a computer. It’s the part of the computer that carries out instructions from programs and performs calculations. Whenever you open an app, play a video game, or browse the internet, the CPU processes the necessary data to make it happen. The CPU's speed and power help determine how fast and efficiently your computer runs.
This “Where is it made?” list includes companies that manufacture and/or design CPUs. Companies like Intel and AMD design their own CPUs, while others, like Apple, create custom CPUs but have them made by specialized manufacturers.
The list excludes TSMC, a manufacturing powerhouse that does not design CPUs itself, and Arm Holdings, which licenses CPU architecture rather than selling finished CPUs.
Below, you will find a list of the largest CPU-producing companies, where their main offices are located, whether their manufacturing is in-house or outsourced (fabless), and what kinds of chips they focus on.
PC and Server CPU Leaders
Intel
Legal name: Intel Corporation
Founded: July 18, 1968
Headquarters: Santa Clara, California, USA
Key Operations Centres: Santa Clara, USA; Mexico City, Mexico; Munich, Germany; Gdansk, Poland; Warsaw, Poland; Beijing, China;
R&D: Austin, Texas, USA; Costa Rica, USA; Massachusetts, USA; Guadalajara, Mexico; Shannon, Ireland; Haifa, Israel; Petah Tikvah, Israel; Bengaluru, India; Hyderabad, India; Penang, Malaysia; Kulim, Malaysia.
Manufacturing: Intel’s own fabrication plants (Fabs) are located in the USA in Chandler, Arizona; Rio Rancho, New Mexico; Hillsboro, Oregon; Leixlip, Ireland; Jerusalem, Israel; Kiryat Gat, Israel; and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Specializes in: Consumer, server, and workstation CPUs (e.g., Core, Xeon, Atom series).
Sources: Intel (Wikipedia), Intel manufacturing fabs, Intel Global Offices
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
Legal name: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Founded: May 1, 1969
Headquarters: Santa Clara, California, USA.
Key Operations Centres: USA, India, Taiwan, Singapore
R&D: Santa Clara, California; Austin, Texas; other USA facilities; Bengaluru, India; Hyderabad, India; Penang, Malaysia; Toronto, Canada; Ottawa, Canada; Waterloo, Canada; Vancouver, Canada; Dublin, Ireland; Cork, Ireland; Edinburgh, UK; Cambridge, UK; Munich, Germany; sites in Finland.
Manufacturing: Outsourced to GlobalFoundries (Singapore and USA) and TSMC (Taiwan).
Specializes in: Consumer and server processors (e.g., Ryzen, EPYC, Threadripper)
Sources: AMD Corporate Locations, AMD (Wikipedia)
Mobile / Consumer System-on-chip CPU Designers
Apple
Legal name: Apple Inc.
Founded: April 1, 1976
Headquarters: Cupertino, California, Silicon Valley, USA.
Key Operations Centres: Cupertino, California; Los Angeles, California; Austin, Texas; Cork, Ireland; Shanghai, China; Singapore.
R&D: Cupertino, California; San Diego, California; Austin, Texas; Herzliya, Israel; Shanghai, China; Shenzhen, China; Munich, Germany; Cambridge, UK.
Manufacturing: Outsourced to TSMC (Taiwan).
Specializes in: ARM-based processors for consumer electronics (e.g., M1, M2 chips).
Sources: Apple (Wikipedia), Work at Apple Locations
Qualcomm Incorporated
Legal name: Qualcomm Incorporated
Founded: 1 July 1985.
Headquarters: San Diego, California, USA.
Key Operations Centres: San Diego, California.
R&D: San Diego, USA; Austin, USA; Santa Clara, USA; Boulder, USA; Cork, Ireland; Dublin, Ireland; Hyderabad, India; Bengaluru, India; Chennai, India; Hanoi, Vietnam; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Nuremberg, Germany; Issy-les-Moulineaux, France.
Manufacturing: Outsourced to TSMC (Taiwan), Samsung (Snapdragon chips).
Specializes in: ARM-based processors for mobile devices (e.g., Snapdragon series)
Sources: Qualcomm (Wikipedia), Qualcomm Offices Locations, Qualcomm Locations
MediaTek Inc.
Legal name: MediaTek Inc.
Founded: 28 May 1997
Headquarters: Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Key Operations Centres: Hsinchu, Taiwan.
R&D: Bengaluru, India; Noida, India; Beijing, China; Shanghai, China; Shenzhen, China; Chengdu, China; Oulu, Finland; Linköping, Sweden; San Jose, United States.
Manufacturing: Outsourced to TSMC (Taiwan).
Specializes in: ARM-based processors for smartphones, smart TVs, IoT (e.g., Dimensity series).
Sources: MediaTek (Wikipedia), MediaTek Global Locations
Embedded / Industrial CPU Leaders
Renesas Electronics
Legal name: Renesas Electronics Corporation
Founded: November 1, 2002, as Renesas Technology and April 1, 2010, as Renesas Electronics.
Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan.
Key Operations Centres: Tokyo, Japan; Düsseldorf, Germany.
R&D: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Beijing, China; Penang, Malaysia.
Manufacturing: Multiple in-house fabs in Japan.
Specializes in: Microcontrollers and SoCs for automotive and industrial applications.
Sources: Renesas Electronics (Wikipedia), Renesas Global Operations
STMicroelectronics
Legal name: STMicroelectronics N.V.
Founded: 1987
Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.
Key Operations Centres: Geneva, Switzerland (Corporate headquarters); Saint-Genis-Pouilly, France; Paris, France; Coppell, Texas (US headquarters); Singapore (Headquarters for the Asia-Pacific region); Tokyo (Headquarters for Japan and Korea operations); Shanghai (Headquarters for China operations).
R&D: Grenoble, France; Rousset, France; Tours, France; Milan, Italy; Catania, Italy.
Manufacturing: In-house manufacturing in Grenoble, France; Rousset, France; Tours, France; Milan, Italy; Catania, Italy; Caserta, Italy; Kirkop, Malta; Singapore; Tunis, Tunisia; Bouskoura, Morocco; Norrköping, Sweden.
Specializes in: Embedded processors; microcontrollers, semiconductor solutions for automotive, industrial, consumer electronics, and IoT sectors, and connectivity chips.
Sources: STMicroelectronics (Wikipedia)
Texas Instruments
Legal name: Texas Instruments Incorporated
Founded: 1951 as Texas Instruments; 1930 as Geophysical Service Incorporated.
Headquarters: Dallas, Texas, USA.
Key Operations Centres: USA, China, Japan; Freising, Germany.
R&D: Sugar Land, Texas; Santa Clara, California; Tucson, Arizona; Manchester, New Hampshire; Freising, Germany; Finland; Israel; Norway; China; India; Japan; South Korea; Taiwan.
Manufacturing: In-house manufacturing in Dallas, Texas; Richardson, Texas; Sherman, Texas; Lehi, Utah; South Portland, Maine; Mexico; Freising, Germany; China; Japan; Malaysia; Philippines; Taiwan.
Specializes in: Industrial and digital signal processors.
Sources: Texas Instruments (Wikipedia), Texas Instruments Locations
NXP Semiconductors
Legal name: NXP Semiconductors N.V.
Founded: 2006.
Headquarters: High Tech Campus, Eindhoven, Netherlands.
Key Operations Centres: Eindhoven, Netherlands; San Jose, California; Singapore.
R&D: Eindhoven; Nijmegen; San Jose, California; Austin, Texas; Chandler, Arizona; San Diego; Novi, Michigan; Kanata, Ontario; Gratkorn; Milan; Catania; Leuven; Delft; Brno; Rožnov pod Radhoštěm; Bucharest; Caen; Mougins; Toulouse; Grenoble; Sophia Antinopolis; Dresden; Hamburg; Munich; Southampton; Glasgow; Yokneam Ilit; Bengaluru, India; Pune, India; Hyderabad, India; Noida, India.
Manufacturing: Mixes in-house fabs in Chandler, Arizona, USA; Austin, Texas, USA; Nijmegen, Netherlands; Singapore, with outsourcing manufacturing to other foundries.
Specializes in: Automotive processors, networking, and security chips.
Sources: NXP Semiconductors (Wikipedia)
Data Center / HPC / AI CPU Designers
NVIDIA
Legal name: NVIDIA Corporation
Founded: 5 April 1993
Headquarters: Santa Clara, California, USA
Key Operations Centres: USA, Taiwan, China, India
R&D: Generative AI, multimodal learning, and 3D vision - Taiwan; Robotics - Seattle, USA; 3D Deep Learning - Toronto, Canada; Dynamic Vision and Learning - Munich, Germany; Perception, Action, and Reasoning Lab - Israel; Real-Time Graphics Research - Europe and North America; High-Fidelity Physics Research - Asia, Europe, and North America.
Manufacturing: Outsourced to TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung (USA and South Korea).
Specializes in: AI and accelerated computing
Sources: NVIDIA (Wikipedia), NVIDIA Research Labs
IBM
Legal name: International Business Machines Corporation (IBM)
Founded: 16 June 1911 (founded as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company; renamed IBM in 1924)
Headquarters: Armonk, New York, USA.
Key Operations Centres: Armonk (headquarters), USA; Poughkeepsie (primary manufacturing and R&D center for IBM Z mainframes and storage systems), USA; Rochester (servers), USA; Austin (cloud, AI, and software development), USA; Germany; Switzerland; UK; Japan; India.
R&D: Main R&D labs in Yorktown Heights, New York (IBM Research headquarters), USA; Silicon Valley, California; Cambridge, USA; Bengaluru, India; Gurgaon, India; Ireland; Israel; Japan; Zurich, Switzerland.
Manufacturing: IBM outsources fabrication to GlobalFoundries (Singapore and the USA) and Samsung (the USA and South Korea). (Historically, IBM manufactured its own semiconductor chips; however, it sold the manufacturing division to Global Foundries in 2015.)
Specializes in: High-performance CPUs for enterprise servers and supercomputing.
Sources: IBM (Wikipedia), IBM Labs
High-Growth Cloud CPU Player
Ampere Computing
Legal name: Ampere Computing LLC.
Founded: 2017.
Headquarters: Santa Clara, California, USA.
Key Operations Centres: Santa Clara, California; Portland, Oregon; Warsaw, Poland; Shanghai, China.
R&D: Bangalore, India; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Taipei, Taiwan; Shanghai, China.
Manufacturing: Outsourcing to TSMC.
Specializes in: Cloud infrastructure processors.
Source: Ampere Computing Official Website, Ampere Computing (Wikipedia)