Workers inside the clean room of U.S. semiconductor manufacturer SkyWater Technology, where computer chips are made, in Bloomington, Minnesota, in April 2022., The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
The investment illustrates the state’s commitment to the national race to capture billions of dollars in federal funds for the industry., allocating $52 billion to spur semiconductor manufacturing in the country. The law seeks to encourage private investment in the sector by offering subsidies for companies that build new or expand manufacturing facilities and by helping pay for new research and development projects.
The national security system and the intelligence community also depend heavily on semiconductors, said William Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin. Semiconductor companies have already promised $215 billion in investments and the creation of 40,000 jobs across the country in response to the federal CHIPS Act, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. Sixty billion of these investments will land in Texas, where six projects that will create 8,000 jobs in the sector have already been announced. Texas is the second state with the most planned projects, after Arizona.
Texas public coffers will fund two research and manufacturing centers at the state’s flagship universities, which will have two goals: to put Texas at the forefront of advancing technologies and to develop the necessary workforce for the industry. Finding highly skilled workers is one of the biggest challenges to bringing chip manufacturing back to the U.S.