ALBANY — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters Wednesday he has not heard anything to suggest the incoming Trump Administration would try to stall or forgo the federal funding set to make Albany NanoTech the country’s first semiconductor technology center.
During a Zoom press conference regarding the $825 million CHIPS and Science Act funds, Schumer said the agreement means Albany NanoTech would get the funding announced in October no matter which administration is in charge. Trump will return to the White House on Monday.
“It secures the funding no matter the administration, and says in writing that upstate New York will be the home of NSTC,” Schumer said. “It will stay in Albany no matter who is the president. This agreement is the dawn of a new day for the Capital Region.”
However, Trump has previously criticized the bill and House Speaker Mike Johnson previously said Congressional Republicans “probably will” try to repeal the law, later walking back the statement. The GOP regained control of both chambers of Congress last fall.
The Albany complex was selected by federal officials to become the national headquarters for research into extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, which is used in semiconductor technology. The lab, which is currently under construction, will have the most advanced chip-making machinery and researchers from the semiconductor industry will collaborate with university counterparts.
The funding comes a few months after it was announced that Malta-based semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries had secured $1.5 billion in federal funding to expand its fabrication facilities.
Schumer said the investment in Albany NanoTech will also aid GlobalFoundries future expansion.
“Chips keep getting more and more sophisticated,” he said. “The more sophisticated they are, the more products our companies can make, the more cost effective they can make these products. And so GlobalFoundries to be right next to Albany Nano will help them stay No. 1 in the field of legacy chips, where they lead the world when there’s a new advance. GlobalFoundries is going to be in on that advance because their workers and their scientists will be right across the river in the NSTC. It’s also an advantage for GlobalFoundries because the NSTC will train workers. That’s one of its functions, and so they will get top-of-the-line, trained workers to work in their plans.”
During the press conference, Schumer rejected a study by researchers at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, which concluded that while thousands of jobs would be created from the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act, subsidies would also cost taxpayers around $185,000 a year for each job created. That cost would be twice the average annual salary of U.S. semiconductor employees, according to the Associated Press.
“When the Peterson Institute does their calculations, they don’t count all the extra jobs that are added here,” Schumer said. “They don’t talk about all the people who will come here and spend money in the stores and the restaurants and at the shops and everything else, so they do a very narrow focus. They start out thinking they want to cut it and then try to prove it, as opposed to just coming up with the facts.”
Schumer also claimed China would produce the chips if the United States didn’t, and then China would have “our economy by the throat.”
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