Intel to invest $300mn over next 5 years to promote gender and racial diversity

In an announcement made at the ongoing Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, chip giant Intel's CEO Brian Krzanich revealed that the company has planned an investment of $300 million, over the next five-year period, for promoting gender and racial diversity.

Krzanich said that Intel plans to ensure full representation in its workforce, at all levels, by 2020.

Since Intel had slashed nearly 5 percent of its 107,000-strong global workforce in 2014, the announcement made by Krzanich implies that the chipmaker will have nearly 100,000 employees worldwide in the next five years.

Noting that gender and racial diversity in workforce is a "highly relevant issue," Krzanich said that the $300 million investment planned by the coming for promoting workforce diversity will "significantly increase our hiring, progression, retention of women and minorities in the workplace."

Meanwhile, with Intel's planned diversity-focused investment apparently making the launch of a new virtuous cycle by the company, Frost & Sullivan CEO David Frigstad said: "This (Intel's) investment is in complete alignment with a major global megatrend towards empowerment of women, which is motivated by both moral and economic reasons."