Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces $10 Billion Partnership to Bring Next-Generation Research and Development Center to NY CREATES’ Albany Nanotech Complex

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced a $10 billion partnership with leaders from the semiconductor industry such as IBM, Micron, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron, and others to establish a next-generation semiconductor research and development center at NY CREATES’ Albany NanoTech Complex. The partnership will fund the construction of a cutting-edge High NA Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography Center — the first and only publicly owned High NA EUV Center in North America — that will support the research and development of the world’s most complex and powerful semiconductors. In addition to the transformative investment in New York’s Capital Region, this partnership will make New York State home to the nation's most advanced, publicly owned semiconductor R&D infrastructure, support the long-term growth of New York’s tech economy, and create and retain thousands of direct, indirect, and union construction jobs.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickrpage.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Dave, for the introduction. Thank you for the incredible work you do here every single day. At this very moment, there’s a race for global domination. That's why we're here. And I'm here to announce that New York State will win that race.

And in so doing, we'll set the course for the future of technology as we know it, not just for our state, not just for our country, but for the entire world. New York is acquiring. One of the most advanced semiconductor tools on the planet, reasserting America’s manufacturing dominance and reinvigorating communities all over the State of New York.

It's the result of an unprecedented collaboration between the private sector, local, state, and federal leaders. And I want to acknowledge the individuals who helped bring us to this incredible place today. Again, Dave Anderson, the CEO of New York Creates. Thank you for having the vision. That continues to see the possibilities of what we can do right here. Let's give David Anderson another round of applause. Arvind Krishna, the CEO of IBM. We are so proud. We've made so many announcements, a $20 billion announcement just a year ago to show that your continued belief in our state is well founded. So, thank you IBM for all you do for us and all the thousands and thousands of jobs you've created for, for many, many decades.

Scott DeBoer, the EVP of Technology and Products Micron. Just with Micron this past week, as we announced some significant and more investments in education in the Syracuse area. But Micron's not just focused on Syracuse, they're focused on the entire state. Jim Koonman, EVP at ASML, thank you again for being such an industry leader right here in the State of New York. County Executive Dan McCoy has joined us. Steve Acquario, to show the importance of this for counties. Heather Mulligan, the New York Business Council. Chancellor John King, thank you. Everyone part of our SUNY network, RPI President Marty Schmidt, HVCC President Roger Ramsammy as well. All of our partners in government, Hope Knight, Kevin Younis and everyone at ESD.

But let me give a special shout out to the incredible federal team that we have here. Do not take for granted. The powerhouse that we have right here in the state of New York in Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and partner in U.S. government at the Senate, Kirsten Gillibrand. The two of them, the two of them believe, the two of them believe in this.

And Senator Schumer and I have been here many times, you've been here even more because I've been Governor just for two years. You've been, you've walked these halls, you've seen the innovation here, you believe in this. And it is that belief that helped us get to this place. And I'll talk more about that, but this didn't happen because people just hoped someday that it would. It happened because of the tenacity, a spirit of toughness that said we're not going to leave Washington until we deliver this. Not just for the nation, but what we did here in New York State. So, I want to applaud both of you for the incredible leadership that you bring to us every single day. So, thank you.

As I mentioned, this is a race for dominance, tech dominance. And if you want to know one thing about New Yorkers, we are competitive. We don't like to lose, and we lose very infrequently. At the heart of this race are semiconductors, the brains of our electronics, when you think of it that way. The technology that keeps planes in the air, keeps your refrigerator cold, keeps our stock markets and electric grids humming.

Semiconductors are absolutely central to our lives, even though you don't think about them on a regular basis. And the cutting edge is constantly evolving rapidly, rapidly before our eyes. Just look no further than the smartphone in your pocket. Actually, don't look at them. It's kind of disruptive. But that one little device has more processing power in it than all the computers combined that existed on our planet 50 years ago.

That's amazing. It has 100,000 times the computing power and 9 million times the memory that the computer, the Apollo 11 had to land astronauts on the moon. This is in our lifetime, my friend. This is not happening over 50 years or 100 years. This is happening now. And the countries that are able to lead on semiconductors will be at the vanguard of the world's technological future.

And the ones who aren't, the ones who aren't making these investments, will stall and fall far behind. That's what we're up against here. As I said, we're competitive. We're talking about, not just innovation, but geopolitical balance of power. That's what's at stake here, the geopolitical balance of power.

The U.S. used to dominate this industry. 1990, we had 40 percent of all the semiconductor manufacturing in the world. 40 percent. It should have kept going upward, upward, upward, and something happened. Today it's 12 percent, and we're just too dependent on ships and components from places like China, Korea, Taiwan. It's just, it's that supply chain challenge that we saw firsthand during the pandemic. It's not hypothetical, those supply chains came to a halt. The ports were crowded. The materials weren't coming in from other places. You don't have to imagine what that would look like, it happened in our country. Just imagine, think about what happened to the auto industry. By not having chips, it literally put the brakes on the manufacturing, endangering thousands of jobs here and elsewhere. Or imagine the geopolitical shift where countries turn on us. Places embargoes and trade practices stop us from receiving these chips, how debilitating and crippling that would be for our manufacturers.

So, there's massive implications for national security, technological innovation, economic growth and independence. And the Chinese, in particular, attempting to dominate this industry. And guess what? We have no intention of letting that happen. And that's why here today we're launching a new $10 billion partnership with leaders from the semiconductor industry and taking one more step forward to make sure New York is the semiconductor capital of the world.

We don't do anything small here. $10 billion, think about that scale. This historic investment will establish a next generation research and development center right here, right here in Albany at the NanoTech Complex, the most advanced in the country. It'll fund the construction of cutting-edge equipment, the first and only of its kind in North America.

And you ready for the name? I have to ask who came up with this name. Raise your hand if you really want to. High Numerical Aperture Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography Cluster. Okay, and don't ask me to say that twice. So maybe we can abbreviate that, come up with some really cool acronym? I'm sure we're smart enough to figure that out.

But there's only one company in the entire world that makes this equipment, ASML, and we're so glad they're here and grateful for their partnership in making this become a reality. So, what's New York's role? New York State is investing literally $1 billion dollars into Albany NanoTech as part of this new enterprise, and so that's our support for this to establish this home for cutting edge equipment.

Our money will also support the NanoFab Reflection, a new sophisticated building with over 50,000 square feet of clean room space. And the part I love the best, how many jobs are being created? Over 700 jobs. And these are good paying jobs, my friends.

We talk about the stress that families are under. How everything is so expensive these days, but they come in the door and get one of these good paying jobs and keep moving upward, there's no stopping them. They'll be able to take care of themselves, their families, make sure their kids can get a college education. That's what this is all about.

We're making meaningful commitments in workforce development, bringing in all communities to this, as well as environmental sustainability. When this is all up and running here, companies from around the world are going to flock to this area. They're already starting. They see what we have here, industry giants: Micron, IBM, Applied Materials, we know you're here. Tokyo Electron and others will have access to the most sophisticated semiconductor equipment on the planet. And we'll continue to build our reputation as a premier research and development center. That's how we guarantee America's place, not just here, but America's place at the forefront of the Global Semiconductor Race, and that's how we bring the jobs back home.

This day has been in the works for years. Enormous effort, a commitment, getting through some tough times, but I also said, we have to continue. And as a new governor two years ago, I declared that we have to reinvigorate our economy because businesses have to thrive, create more opportunities for New Yorkers.

And one thing with this incredible asset here, for 20 years, this asset has been here. We have to make sure more people know about it. What they have been doing is extraordinary. They have been building chips already. Have you seen the chips that they build here? Who's seen the chips they build here? The innovative chips built here right on this campus. I'm sure Chuck says – you think they're small, Chuck? How little are they? This is one. This is what we're building here. This is what we have built for IBM, right here. This looks familiar to you, right? This is what we're talking about here.

This is part of the innovation, and I want to make sure that everyone knows the capacity that we have here. Very few places on this planet have the capacity to do exactly what we just showed you now. I can't show you any longer because it's secret. Don't take any pictures. But, right up to now we've been talking about research and development, making those chips, helping IBM, helping other companies.

But there's another area and that is the actual manufacturing. And it's critical that we focus on both. Expanding the manufacturing all over. And, again, back to Washington, what was accomplished there. When Majority Leader Schumer and President Biden and the entire Senate supported – not the entire Senate – the smart people in the Senate supported – I had to retract that – the smart people, the people actually don't bet against America, the people want to believe in America and make sure they thrive. When they passed the CHIPS and Science Act, we knew this was an extraordinary opportunity, but that meant there'd be resources for companies to do well and come back to the United States. But how do we position ourselves to make sure that they come not just to the United States and expand here, but come to New York?

So, we built on that. That was a signal to us here in New York. We have this opportunity, and I want to thank the members of the legislature who are here. Please stand up, everyone who supported. Members of the legislature, if you didn't vote for it, what are you doing here? Members of the legislature, our assemblymembers and senators, who supported the Green CHIPS Act. The Semiconductor Incentive Program. And it's hard to get incentive programs for business through the legislature, but these true believers understood the power that we could unleash. Taking advantage of what they did in Washington and bringing that power right here. So, we capitalized on it. Again, I want to thank our fellow representatives.

We recruited Micron. You know the story. It was not easy. We had to nurture them and bring them along. It was kind of like a courtship, right? We had to let them see the love of New York. And how that there's a marriage created here with Micron in New York would lead for generations of a great partnership. And for them to build their U.S. MegaFab plant right here in Upstate New York is one of the greatest accomplishments of our generation. It is extraordinary. The largest investment, economic development investment in the country, $100 billion. And I love the 50,000 jobs that are coming. And we're training people today for those jobs.

That's what's going on in Syracuse as we speak. And I want to thank Chancellor John King, all the labor partners, the business community. We also created Go Semi, an office to help the expansion, to make sure that we have all the assets for everyone. It's working on the skilled workforce. We're hitting it on all fronts. I want to thank everyone here today because you are here to witness history. You know this didn't necessarily have to happen here. But there are committed individuals, just like the people who built this state and made it into the great powerhouse that it was a generation ago, two generations ago, 100 years ago. We are that generation that is driving the change as required at this moment. Because the world will look to New York and say, “This is the day they moved ahead. This is the day that we literally won the race.”

And to everyone who's part of it, I congratulate all of you, and onward to victory. Let's run through the tape and make sure we bring all those jobs and opportunities right here in the great State of New York. Thank you, everybody.

And with that, let me bring up the architect of bringing the jobs back to the United States. Getting it through Washington, getting it through all the hassles, all the hurdles, but he never gave up. And that is our own Senator, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. He thought it was going to be really small. I had to show him it's really big, right? Don't let it fall out, Chuck.