President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed a landmark bill to provide $52.7 billion in subsidies for semiconductor production and research in the US and to boost efforts to make the nation more competitive against China’s technology efforts.
“The future is going to be made in America,” Biden said, calling the CHIPS and Science Act “a once-in-a-generation investment in America itself.”
Biden touted investments by the semiconductor companies even though it remains unclear when the US Commerce Department set guidelines for reviewing grant awards.
The chief executives of Micron (NASDAQ: MU), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) attended the signing, as did governors of Pennsylvania and Illinois, the mayors of Detroit, Cleveland and Salt Lake City, and lawmakers.
The White House said the bill’s passage was spurring new chip investments and noted that Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) on Monday agreed to buy an additional $4.2 billion in semiconductor chips from GlobalFoundries’ (NASDAQ: GFS) New York factory, bringing its total commitment to $7.4 billion in purchases through 2028.
Qualcomm also announced plans to increase semiconductor production in the US by 50% over the next five years.
It also touted Micron announcing a $40 billion investment in memory chip manufacturing, which would boost US market share from 2% to 10%.
Likewise, Intel in January announced plans to invest up to $100 billion to build a new chip complex in Ohio, starting with an initial $20 billion commitment.
Picture Credit: FT
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