Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Celebrates GlobalFoundries’ $11.6 Billion Investment to Expand Semiconductor Manufacturing Plant in Saratoga County

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that Saratoga County-based GlobalFoundries will invest more than $11.6 billion over the next 10 years to expand its existing Fab 8 semiconductor manufacturing site in New York’s Capital Region. The transformative investment will allow the company to immediately expand its existing facility and then build a new, 358,000 square-foot semiconductor manufacturing facility on its campus in Malta, tripling its capacity to meet growing demand for chips, enhancing national security by expanding the United States’ chipmaking capacity, and creating more than 1,500 direct jobs and thousands of indirect jobs. The project builds on Governor Hochul’s successful effort to establish New York State as a global hub for semiconductor research and manufacturing, following the recent announcement of an historic $10 billion partnership to create the first publicly owned High NA EUV Lithography Center at NY CREATES’ Albany NanoTech Complex.

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 Flickr page.

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

Good afternoon. Seriously? This is one of the biggest announcements our State has ever seen in its history. How about a little more excitement for this great day? Well, last December I stood at Albany Nanotech where I know our Leader of the National Economic Council is going right after we leave here. But I stood there alongside Major Leader Schumer and Senator Gillibrand, and I said as clear as I could, “New York State is setting the path for the future of the rest of the nation.” And that was not an overstatement at all, especially in light of what we're doing here today.

Today's historic investment from the Biden-Harris administration, and the incredible work of Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer in getting this over the finish line in a Senate that's sometimes hard to get things done, congratulations, because this is a very big deal. Thank you.

And Majority Leader Schumer, I want you to know your jokes will never be stale here in the State of New York. Okay? So, don't you go worried about that. But also, to have Secretary Raimondo here for this special announcement, talk about extraordinary leadership in a job where she has her eye around the globe, attracting businesses, making investments, taking care of 50 states.

I'm starting to feel a little extra attention here in New York, and I appreciate that. Maybe because it's two female governors who kind of understand the world we're in, but I know she gives a lot of extra love here to the State of New York, and today is proof of that. I want to thank you for making sure that you listen to Senator Schumer, you listen to Paul Tonko, but also to our President to execute his priorities to, as you said so profoundly, bring back the jobs in manufacturing that we never should have lost.

And I know a lot about this. I was born in Lackawanna, New York. Grandpa, dad, uncles all worked at the steel plant. All of a sudden, one day, 1982, 20,000 jobs were up and gone. You know what that does to the psyche of an entire community in Upstate New York? And then we lost Eastman Kodak jobs. You lost carrier jobs. We were just taking it on the chin for decades.

So, those of you who are old enough to remember this, you probably have a lot of grey hair. But those younger people who don't know this know that with announcements like today, that will never happen in your lifetime or your children's lifetime because we have turned the corner. We are seizing the future right here in the State of New York.

So, the leadership we have here – also, I want to thank the labor force that's here, but also the men and women of labor who'll be building this. I want to thank the Building Trades for them being out there during the cold days and during the pandemic and the hot days of doing their work. We have Mike Lyons here, the President of the Capital Region Building and Construction Trades. I want to give him a special shout out because it is your men and women who will be out there building this fabulous fab factory, and I want to thank you in advance.

Also, we have my team. President of Empire State Development, Hope Knight, whose vision for bringing back the state is extraordinary. And Kevin Younis, who makes the most amazing deals here, including this one and Micron, let's give them a round of applause as well.

You talk about the history of GlobalFoundries, it started with a $1.4 billion investment a long time ago when that was an amount of money larger than probably most economies of any state. I mean, that was a big, big deal, and they promised to invest back in 2006 over $3 billion. Boy, you sure blew past that, Tom. Over $15 million investment because you saw the opportunity here. Once you planted the flag, you said, “I'm going to make this flag even higher and higher and higher.” And for that, we are a nationally recognized state for the work that you and your members do. So, Tom, thank you for never giving up on New York for believing us at a time when people stopped believing. You were there and you're part of our great history and our great future. Let's give another round applause to Tom as well.

I've heard the story of our dependency on these chips that most people didn't even know what they were just a few short years ago. The dependency that came to light during the pandemic, and how do we know that here in the State of New York? Because when we couldn't get those chips from overseas. Literally shut down manufacturing of cars in our own state. We felt this profoundly, and we said, “Never again.” Never again can we be so dependent on foreign supply chains and all the uncertainty around geopolitical circumstances that we have no control over. We can't let our economy come down to that. So, we said never again. The Biden administration said never again. And that's the genesis of building this up, working with the concept of saying, if we make those investments here, they build that industry here, invest in those who've already come before. If you do it here, the jobs will come, the supply chain will come, and we're seeing that and feeling this every single day. The energy is palpable.

I was just in Rochester this morning. I was in Buffalo on Friday. Across the State of New York, they're feeling the effect of global foundries and what we're doing in Albany – at Albany Nanotech, and all across the state, the workforce development. It's happening in an extraordinary way and in pace it so fast you don't even feel it. It's so fast. But I'm proud of what the state's role was in this as well because all I knew is when we got that done and we high five getting that over the finish line, Majority Leader and to the Biden Administration, we said, that's amazing. But I knew as the Governor, there's 49 other States who want this. And I knew I had to make sure that we were competitive, that we had offer something that no other State did. So, I went to my Legislature. I have Carrie Woerner who represents this area. I have Pat Fahy here who represents the Capital Region Albany, Albany Nanotech, other leaders who've joined us. We have the Mayor of Albany here to show this synergy around here.

I said, what can New York State do to make sure they don't just stay in America, grow in America, they don't end up in California or Ohio – Pennsylvania, Arizona. One thing I know about our state – we are competitive, and we do not like to lose. So, I said, how does $10 billion sound to match that, what they're doing at the federal level and make that available to companies that'll follow the rules we set forth to support the social policy objectives, to lift up the workforce, to get diverse background from all from your builders to your workers, offer child care, make sure that your programs are green and sustainable. Can you do all that? And if the answer is yes, we will support you. We'll be all in. And that's exactly what we did when the Legislature passed at my initiative, a $10 billion green CHIPS bill to complement what we're doing at the federal level. That's why we're able to make investments like today and in future places like Micron as well. So, our announcement here, we didn't do 1.5 billion. I'm sorry, I'm just one State. But how does $853 million sound? That's exactly what we're doing. Oh, I made a mistake. It's $872 million.

575 from the Green CHIPS initiatives. There you go. So, we're here to put our support with your investments, but again, project labor agreement diversity targets subsidized child care. We say you'll get this support. You create the jobs, create your 1,500 jobs, create the construction jobs, and we're there to support you as you continue to grow.

So, this is a proud day for all of us. Amazing workforce. You're the most talented people in our Nation. I could not be prouder to represent every one of you and the people who just said will not give up until this gets done – President Biden, Senator Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, her involvement as well in and our Secretary of Commerce. This is the dream team. Historians will look back. What was the turning point in that trajectory of people leaving our Country and leaving, taking jobs overseas? Offshoring? What changed all that? There'll be just two words, it'll be the Biden Administration. The Biden Administration stepped forward and says, no longer, no longer – let's regain that mojo and that sense of accomplishment and exceptionalism that we always had in this great Country.

And I want to thank the President. I want to thank the Majority. I want to thank our Secretary and all those who made this happen. Because this is the day history will look back upon and say it happened here – forever altering the course of history. And that's not even a mention we're going to do with AI. I'll do that another time because I don't want to take away from this, but we are going to be the epicenter of AI innovation because we declared it so, and we're putting the money behind it and everybody's so excited as well. So, it's all happening right here in the great State of New York. Thank you, everybody.