Micron Technology Inc on Tuesday announced it would open a semiconductor plant in upstate New York, promising a long-term investment of up to US$100 billion and a plant that could bring 50,000 jobs to the state.
The company was lured to the Syracuse area with help from a generous set of federal, state and local incentives, including up to US$5.5 billion in state tax credits over 20 years.
The announcement comes after US Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer had pushed for Idaho-based Micron and the company’s CEO, Sanjay Mehrotra, to consider upstate New York for its factory. It also comes months after Congress passed the US$280 billion Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act, which set aside US$52 billion to bolster the semiconductor industry.
Photo: Bloomberg
“An investment of this scale in the US is simply not possible without significant government and community support,” Mehrotra said at the announcement.
In addition to tax credits tied to investment and job creation, New York has pledged US$200 million for road and infrastructure improvements where the plant is being built in suburban Clay and US$100 million to a “community benefit” fund. The state would also review supplying the operation with low-cost power.
The federal bill was aimed at bolstering US competitiveness against China and avoiding another chip shortage like the one that derailed the automobile and technology industries during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Chips are essential to our economy, and if we were to lose the ability to manufacture chips here in the United States, it would be a severe, both economic security and national security risk,” Schumer said in an interview with The Associated Press. “This will be the most advanced memorychip manufacturing facility in the United States and probably the world. And it’s located in a place that will really benefit from it.”
The company plans to invest up to US$100 billion over the next 20-plus years to construct the project, with the first investment of US$20 billion planned by the end of the decade. The deal is also expected to bring more than 9,000 jobs to Micron, and officials believe it could also bring close to 40,000 other ancillary jobs to the region, from suppliers to contractors, officials said.
Micron has several chip manufacturing plants around the world, including in Singapore and Taiwan. The company announced last month that it would invest US$15 billion through the end of the decade on a new semiconductor plant in its hometown, which the chipmaker said would create 17,000 US jobs.
Manish Bhatia, Micron’s executive vice president of global operations, said that New York was selected in large part because it has a history of semiconductor development.
New York is home to 76 semiconductor companies, Schumer said.
“There is an ecosystem of other manufacturers, research institutions,” Bhatia said. “We believe we can funnel a lot of that talent” to the Syracuse area, including military veterans.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his