The White House on Tuesday announced 12 regional tech hubs, including one in New York along the Interstate 90 corridor connecting Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.
The selection will provide $40 million to the region and unlock up to $8 million in matching funds from the state aimed at spurring growth in the semiconductor industry.
“This major investment has captured the national attention of the federal government and confirmed what I have known for some time: the future of America's semiconductor industry runs through its heart along Interstate 90 in upstate New York,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said in a press release.
Schumer visited New York in October with Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra and others to announce that the NY SMART I-Corridor Tech Hub, which serves the Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Ithaca, Auburn and Batavia metropolitan areas, had been federally designated and is on track to receive one of these “Implementation Grants.”
Schumer said the designation will give the upstate New York region an edge in accessing millions of dollars in federal funding for semiconductor manufacturing and workforce training.
The Biden administration on Tuesday committed a total of $504 million to areas including Colorado, Montana, Illinois, Nevada and South Florida focused on industries such as clean energy, biotechnology, artificial intelligence and quantum computing to bolster national and economic security.
The program is part of the CHIPS & Science Act, which Schumer pushed for and signed into law in 2022.
“With this transformative federal grant, New York State is taking another major step toward building chip country in our state,” Gov. Kathy Hockle said in a statement. “This grant will help bring the next generation of semiconductor research, manufacturing and workforce training to upstate New York, and will help us acquire additional funding to attract chip manufacturing companies and jobs, in addition to other investments made by the state.”
This is a developing story, check back later for updates.
