President Biden on Thursday hailed plans for Micron, an Idaho-based semiconductor chip manufacturer, to invest $15 billion to build a new facility in Boise after the passage of bipartisan legislation earlier this month.
“Today’s announcement by Micron is another big win for America,” Biden said, referencing recent U.S. investments announced by Toyota, Honda and Corning.
“In our future, we will make [electric vehicles], chips, fiber optics, and other critical components here in America, and we will have an economy built from the bottom up and middle out,” Biden said.
Micron on Thursday morning announced a roughly $15 billion investment through 2030 to build a memory manufacturing plant in Boise, where the company is headquartered.
“This will be the first new memory manufacturing fab built in the U.S. in 20 years, ensuring domestic supply of leading-edge memory required for market segments like automotive and data center, fueled by accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence and 5G,” the company said in a statement.
Micron said the Boise factory would be the first of multiple planned investments after the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act, which passed with bipartisan support and includes more than $50 billion in incentives for manufacturers to build domestic semiconductor plants. It also includes more than $80 billion for the National Science Foundation authorized over five years to support innovation and research.
Biden administration officials had for months warned of supply chain and national security risks if Congress did not invest in domestic manufacturing of chips that are used to power computers, cars and major home appliances, arguing the U.S. would become too reliant on China and others for the semiconductors.