New York state to invest in $10B chip research complex

New York state is joining tech giant IBM and semiconductor manufacturer Micron Technology to invest $10 billion in a state-of-the-art chip research facility at the University of Albany, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced.

NY Creates, a nonprofit entity that oversees The Albany NanoTech Complex where the 50,000-square-foot facility will be built, will supervise the project, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Upon its completion in 2026, the facility is expected to include some of the most advanced chip-making equipment in the world courtesy of ASML Holding, a Dutch company that sells machines worth upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars, The Journal reported.

Once the machinery is installed, the project and its partners — including material-engineering company Applied Materials and electronics firm Tokyo Electron — will work on next-generation chip manufacturing there, per The Journal, citing Hochul’s office.

ASML’s advanced machines use lasers and drops of tin in a highly-complex process that uses silicon and ultraviolet light to turn semiconductor materials into chips, according to the company’s website — all while keeping the chip “about 10,000 cleaner than the outside air.”

Acquiring machines capable of this advanced technology at this Albany complex expansion is part of the $53 billion Chips Act, which the Commerce Department initiated earlier this year to counter technological advances in China while boosting national security by slashing America’s reliance on imported chips.

New York state has committed $1 billion to the project, which will be used to purchase the ASML equipment and construct the building, The Journal reported.

The facility could also help New York’s bid to be the designated research hub under the Chips Act — which included $11 billion for a National Semiconductor Technology Center designed to advance domestic chip research and development, according to The Journal.

The University of Albany’s new building is set to have a larger impact on the economy.

Hochul’s office predicts its opening will create some 700 new jobs and bring in at least $9 billion in private money.

The Post has sought comment from Hochul’s office, as well as the University of Albany.

The Albany NanoTech Complex — which was first constructed in the late ’90s as a lone 70,000-square-foot facility and has since ballooned into a 1.65 million square-foot complex — has already made headway on its chip research efforts.

New York boasts a number of large chip factories, including ones operated by semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries, which works with San Diego, Calif.-based Qualcomm, the maker of chips that come in Android, Asus and Sony devices.

Fellow semiconductor manufacturing company Onsemi also boasts a manufacturing facility in Rochester, NY, and Wolfspeed, a semiconductor manufacturer that focuses on silicon carbide, expanded to the East Coast with the opening of its Marcy, NY, facility last year.