Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.

Sen. Chuck Schumer invited Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan, director of the National Science Foundation, to a meeting in central New York to show him the region’s potential in the industry with the hope of securing more funding, according to a release Friday.

Schumer said he wants to show Panchanathan the progress that investments from Micron and other companies, including Wolfspeed, IBM, GlobalFoundries and Edwards Vacuum, have already brought to central and upstate New York because of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. Schumer said further investment from NSF for research and training would benefit workforce development.

“When I created the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, I made sure to include major investment for STEM education and training, so we can prepare and put to work New Yorkers in the many thousands of new, good-paying manufacturing, innovation, and construction jobs that will be created by Micron and other companies investing hundreds of billions of dollars across Upstate New York,” Schumer said in the release.

The CHIPS Act appropriated $200 million for the CHIPS for America Workforce and Education Fund, which will enable the NSF to begin workforce development for the semiconductor industry as it faces potential shortages, Schumer said in the release.

In 2022, Schumer included a $9.87 billion package for NSF, a $1 billion increase from the previous year. Now, for FY-24, Schumer is pushing for $11.3 billion in NSF funding, according to the release. These investments build on the CHIPS for America Workforce and Education fund, another piece of the overall effort to bolster the country’s domestic semiconductor industry.

Schumer invited Panchanathan to a roundtable event in Syracuse where the two will meet with local groups including leaders from higher education institutions to discuss the region’s role in American manufacturing.

“Central New York is uniquely suited to bring manufacturing back to America and power the nation’s technological leadership for decades to come,” Schumer said in the release.

Schumer said regional community colleges and universities can receive NSF funding from his packages for workforce training programs as the region prepares for the influx of job opportunities from the new Micron plant.

Schumer ended his invitation with an encouragement for the NSF to swiftly make use of the federal funds allotted to them to ensure regional workforce development begins shortly.

“Micron’s $100 billion investment in Upstate New York will be transformational and will make Upstate New York a global powerhouse in the semiconductor industry,” Schumer said in the release. “But for this project to succeed, we need to get to work putting Upstate New Yorkers to work.”

Published on April 3, 2023 at 1:03 am