POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. (WTEN) — IBM said Thursday that it plans to invest $20 billion across the Hudson Valley over the next 10 years. The announcement coincides with a visit by President Joe Biden to the computing company’s Poughkeepsie site, as the presidential administration looks to tout industrial and technological investment in the U.S. ahead of next month’s midterm elections.
The announcement is the latest in a string of investments unveiled since Biden inked the Chips and Science bill in August, funding $52 billion to subsidize semiconductor chips manufacturing and research. Biden has sought to capitalize on these sorts of investment announcements ahead of November’s elections, most recently traveling to Ohio to speak at the site of Intel Corp’s planned $20 billion semiconductor manufacturing facility.
On Tuesday, Micron Technology announced plans to invest nearly $100 billion over the next 20-plus years to build a semiconductor fabrication facility in New York, which is expected to create nearly 50,000 jobs. The first phase investment of $20 billion will be rolled out this decade.
IBM’s Poughkeepsie site is home to one of the largest concentrations of quantum computers in the nation. Biden will be joined at the site by Chief Executive Arvind Krishna.
IBM said it plans to make its Poughkeepsie site “a global hub of the company’s quantum computing development, just as it is today for mainframes.” IBM did not explicitly layout its $20 billion investment plans but said chip funding “will ensure a reliable and secure supply of next-generation chips for today’s computers and artificial intelligence platforms.”
Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price in New York City and Michael Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed to this report.