(Credit: Charles Knowles/Shutterstock.com)
The US government is granting American semiconductor firm Micron Technology up to $6.14 billion in funding to build new chip factories in New York and Idaho in a move estimated to create over 70,000 jobs, the White House announced Thursday. Micron itself plans to invest up to $125 billion in US chip manufacturing by 2030.
Micron is expected to build two new chip manufacturing plants in Clay, New York as part of the funding deal. It will also build a third in Boise, Idaho, where it already has a substantial presence. Micron will also receive state tax breaks from New York as it builds the new plants.
"Micron’s leading-edge memory is foundational to meeting the growing demands of artificial intelligence, and we are proud to be making significant memory manufacturing investments in the US, which will create many high-tech jobs," said Micron President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra in a statement.
The three plants will likely create 20,000 direct jobs as well as another 50,000 indirect jobs as the plants begin construction, according to the release. Micron is also supporting apprenticeships at the new plants, supports worker union organization, and is entering into project labor agreements (PLAs), a type of construction-specific collective bargaining agreement, for the plants.
Clay is just outside of Syracuse, New York, an area Biden hopes will see an "economic comeback" with the new factories. The new Clay and Boise buildings will produce DRAM chips and each have 600,000 square feet of "cleanroom" space, which are sterile, temperature-controlled environments that allow for cutting-edge chip production.
This funding is part of President Biden's 2022 CHIPS & Science Act, which allots nearly $53 billion in funding to spur advanced chip manufacturing in the US. Samsung, Intel, and TSMC have already received billions to build and renovate US plants across the country, and are investing billions of their own funds as well.
In March, Biden awarded Intel up to $19.5 billion in grants and loans to build new chip factories in Arizona and Ohio as well as finish two plants in New Mexico and renovate an existing plant in Oregon. TSMC received $11.6 billion in grants and loans earlier this month to build a new plant in Arizona, and Samsung is getting $6.4 billion to build and expand on factories in Texas.
All this funding is part of an effort to establish the US as a leading manufacturer of the world's most advanced chips. It also continues to bar the exports of its highest-end chips to China, and has done so since 2022. While China has begun phasing out US chips from its government computers and telecom networks, some US chips are still being sold and shipped to the country despite the ban. Notably, China banned all Micron chips last year, alleging they pose a risk to the country's national security—claims the US government has denied.