New York Joins IBM, Micron in $10 Billion Chip Research Complex (wsj.com) 17
New York has partnered with chip firms to build $10 billion semiconductor research site at University at Albany, featuring cutting-edge ASML equipment to develop most advanced chips. From a report: Once the machinery is installed, the project and its partners will begin work on next-generation chip manufacturing there, according to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's office. The partners include tech giant IBM, memory manufacturer Micron and chip manufacturing equipment makers Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron.
The expansion could help New York's bid to be designated a research hub under last year's $53 billion Chips Act. That legislation included $11 billion for a National Semiconductor Technology Center to foster domestic chip research and development. Expanding domestic chip manufacturing and research has become a federal and state-level priority in recent years as concern grows in the U.S. over China's expanding grasp over the industry. Chips are increasingly seen as a crux of geopolitical power, underlying advanced weapons for militaries and sophisticated artificial-intelligence systems.
The expansion could help New York's bid to be designated a research hub under last year's $53 billion Chips Act. That legislation included $11 billion for a National Semiconductor Technology Center to foster domestic chip research and development. Expanding domestic chip manufacturing and research has become a federal and state-level priority in recent years as concern grows in the U.S. over China's expanding grasp over the industry. Chips are increasingly seen as a crux of geopolitical power, underlying advanced weapons for militaries and sophisticated artificial-intelligence systems.
It is good to be the majority leader of the Senate (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It is good to be the majority leader of the Sen (Score:5, Insightful)
I was thinking the same, why put this in Albany? No offense to Albany, been there, it has beautiful lakes and hills, and people are friendly, but it's not on any top move-to destinations list in the US. I could say the same about the fabs going into Ohio. If one is building a facility where there is no existing local talent pool, then at a minimum pick a location where people are actively trying to relocate to. I've never heard anyone in tech say "I wish I could to relocate to Albany or Columbus". I get the allure of tax rebates and government kickbacks, but if there's anything to learn from the "it's the next Silicon Valley" hype of the last 20 years, it's that building it does not mean they will come. The smart money builds where people already are or where they're going, building where people aren't and aren't moving to is not a path to success.
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Let's be fair to Columbus, it's a city that is growing rapidly and, as much as it pains me to say this, it has a top-tier research university. In 1890, the cities were about the same size and now there's ~10X as many people in Columbus.
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Locate jobs somewhere and people will move to fill them. If you pick somewhere with cheap housing or room to easily build more, you can probably get some people to do it for the lower cost of living
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You're describing a chicken and egg problem. Because there aren't a lot of tech jobs in City X, there's little reason for a person with a degree in said field to consider moving there. Because very few people move there, no local talent pool exists to give companies a reason to locate there. Repeat endlessly.
Locate jobs somewhere and people will move to fill them. If you pick somewhere with cheap housing or room to easily build more, you can probably get some people to do it for the lower cost of living over other places with a wider job market.
I don't know if Albany is a good place for this or not. I suspect that on some level it was a political decision. But regardless of that if this is successful it may attract other semiconductor companies to the city because now there's a little bit of a talent pool and maybe the financials otherwise make sense. Silicon Valley didn't just spring into existence over night. It went through a similar process.
A lower cost of living helps a bit, but it vanishes as soon as you have a bit of success, and then you need to start attracting people for other reasons.
The big thing Silicon Valley had going for it is a mild climate, an ocean, and mountains. Those factors aren't sufficient to build a new tech hub, but they were somewhat necessary.
Remember this kind of work force migration is typically driven by young graduates looking to live in a nice enjoyable location. The Cayman Islands for finance is a classic example
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Locate jobs somewhere and people will move to fill them.
Except they need highly skilled people who are in high demand everywhere.
TSMC just scaled back their Arizona fab because they couldn't find enough people to staff it.
This Albany fab will be competing for the same people.
Many would rather live in Arizona than upstate NY, and TSMC looks way better on a resume than IBM.
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Did you consider that maybe they plan to staff it primarily with remote workers? If you can work from anywhere, that means the office can be anywhere too.
More paywall promos (Score:3)
Please stop posting articles to paywalled sites. Seriously has /. just become a driver for subscription services?
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Here's a summary: NY is giving away billions of taxpayer dollars in corporate welfare, futilely hoping to make it up with Federal corporate welfare that is unlikely to go to NY.
I don't understand why NY voters put up with this nonsense, but I'm not a NY taxpayer, so I don't care.
There is a quiet revolution underway (Score:2)
Corporations driven by profit motives have always looked to find the cheapest labor market to make things. Now that machines are becoming more capable and less expensive, they will outcompete even the lowest paid third world worker.
Get used to reading about huge plants of all kinds springing up your backyard.
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If we can claw back a large portion of our production from China, that would be a good thing.
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I learned recently that there is a record amount of investment going on in the US building factories for all sorts of things.
Biden has put trillions in subsidies on the table, so of course companies are tapping into that.
Some of those subsidies make sense, such as for green energy.
Others, like semiconductor subsidies, are already looking foolish. Countries all over the world are subsidizing fabs and there's gonna be a huge glut when they all start producing.
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Unless demand increases which I expect it will. Also, these countries will raise tariffs and trade barriers to protect their new industry.
Albany? (Score:2)
Albany seems like a really bad place to put this. More reasonable places in NY would be Rochester or Dutchess County where there is already a presence for this kind of stuff.
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