Micron to invest up to $100bn in New York chip factory

US semiconductor firm Micron Technology is planning to invest up to $100 billion in a new manufacturing facility based in New York.

According to Micron, this marks the largest private investment in New York state history and could go some way in remedying the semiconductor shortage hampering the US – an issue made easier to solve with the passing of the CHIPS Bill by president Joe Biden.

“I am grateful to President Biden and his Administration for making the CHIPS and Science Act a priority,” said Micron president and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra. “Micron will leverage the diverse, highly educated and skilled talent in New York as we look to build our workforce in the Empire State.”

Known by Micron as the ‘megafab’, the firm said construction on the facility will begin in 2024 and it will create around 50,000 jobs in the city, including approximately 9,000 jobs which Micron described as “high paying”.

The semiconductor giant added that the investment will be fed over a 20-year period with the first phase investment of $20bn planned by the end of this decade.

“This project is a dramatic turning point for a region that has faced decades of lost manufacturing jobs,” said senate majority leader Charles Schumer.

The investment also comes as part of the firm’s strategy to gradually increase American-stamped leading-edge DRAM production to 40% of the company’s global output over the next 10 years. It added that the facility will operate in line with its sustainability framework, aiming to use 100% renewable electricity which will be mitigated by controlled by “state-of-the-art” technology.

According to Micron, it chose New York to home the new facility based on its “multiple” advantages including access to talent and the availability of clean, reliable power to facilitate a large-scale project.

In combination with New York’s already robust microchip industry from the Hudson Valley, Albany, and the Mohawk Valley to Binghamton, Rochester, and Buffalo, Schumer added that it will put Upstate New York on the map in a way it hasn’t seen “in generations”.

Intel announced a similar project at the beginning of this year: a $20bn investment to build a new chip facility in Ohio, marking the firm’s first step towards a “mega-site” costing a total of $100bn.