Intel announces its own $3.5 billion stimulus package for technology

Intel Capital, the company’s global investment organization,
will invest $3.5 billion in U.S. technology companies over the next two years,
Intel CEO Paul Otellini announced Tuesday in an address at the Brookings
Institution in Washington.

It also is joining 16 other companies, including Microsoft,
Google and Yahoo, in promising to increase hiring goals in 2010 to create
10,500 new jobs for college graduates. U.S. and foreign citizens would be
eligible for these jobs.

Otellini said the effort to support growth-oriented
industries represents a commitment to “significantly increase jobs available
this year for recent college graduates.”

{mosads}He said the initiative would add $1 billion in wages and
benefits to the economy, and tied it to a need to spark an economic recovery in
America.

Otellini said the initiative would create “the right
environment for new thinking and breakthrough innovations.”

The effort comes as Congress and the White House continue to
try to take action to stem the country’s 9.7 percent unemployment rate. The
Senate on Monday voted to move forward on a $15 billion jobs bill that includes
a tax credit for firms to hire new workers.

Otellini said he would not favor a new stimulus bill, and he
criticized the spending in the $787 billion stimulus approved last year as
being too spread out. But he said that bill staved off an economic meltdown
that would have devastated the economy.

Twenty-four venture capital firms have committed to support
the new alliance. Otellini singled out Advanced Technology Ventures and Braemar
Energy Ventures as companies that have agreed to provide investments in clean
technology, information technology and biotechnology companies over
approximately two years.

Otellini contrasted the business environment in America with
a more friendly approach overseas. He praised other countries for measures
taken to promote economic growth.

“Over the next three years China, India and South Korea
will invest three times the amount we do in clean-energy technologies. Taiwan
is the undisputed center for PC design and innovation, exporting the computers
it builds to the rest of the world,” he said.

Otellini pointed toward Intel’s investments in math and
science education as an idea that America could emulate.

“Our Intel Teach program has already trained more than 7
million teachers worldwide and more than 350,000 in the U.S. The result is
improved critical thinking, research and problem-solving skills that students
need to succeed in the jobs of the future.”