ALBANY COUNTY — “We’re in a partnership to make New York the semiconductor capital of the country,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to a group of politicians and business leaders who applauded his comments on Monday morning.

They had gathered at the Albany NanoTech campus where, Schumer said, there are already national partnerships, existing infrastructure, and a “world-class workforce.”

Schumer said that, when he wrote the United States Innovation and Competition Act, which has passed in the Senate but not the House, he had Albany in mind.

The act, meant to compete with China in a new form of a Cold War race, focusing on technology, would over five years, authorize $110 billion for technology research in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum computing, and advanced energy as well as in semiconductors.

Schumer said it would be a “gamechanger” for the Capital Region and would create “over 1,000 cutting-edge jobs.”

In June 2021, the White House published a report on building resilient supply chains and revitalizing American manufacturing that found, for global semiconductor supply chains, while the United States leads in design, it severely lacks foundries to increase chip production to lessen the risk of future chip shortages.

Schumer on Monday praised New York CREATES, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1993, that since then has invested more than $15 billion at the Albany Nanotech campus and, its mission statement says, is serving “as a resource for public-private and academic partnerships within New York State to create and lead industry connected innovation and commercialization projects that attract investment and create growth in high technology jobs.”

“It’s public,” said Schumer, meaning the research is shared rather than research done by private companies that “keep it for themselves.”

“It will be like a magnet, attracting the best and brightest in semiconductor research,” said Schumer if the project materializes.

“It’s all about the semiconductors and we are in a war,” said Governor Kathy Hochul who spoke after Schumer at the event. “We are in a global war with other countries, China, Taiwan, Korea, and others who want to own the dominance of this industry. We’re not letting that happen.”

Hochul noted that in her State of the State address and her budget she had said, “We are going to position New York State to be the most business friendly, but also worker friendly, state in the nation.”

Hochul has slated $350 million for worker development and workforce initiatives and she’d like to see more women in the field of technology.

The final speaker on Monday morning, Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves, noted a troubling trend in the United States’ faltering, or even failing, dominance in the semiconductor industry.

“We owned 40 percent of production,” Graves said, referencing a percentage similar to one Hochul had cited. The White House report puts the share at 37 percent 20 years ago.

Today, the United States has a 12-percent share of global production, Graves said, and “zero percent of the most advanced chips.”

“That just doesn’t cut it in the 21st Century,” he said.

The lack of available chips cost the auto industry $210 billion in revenues, he said, and eight billion vehicles were not produced because there weren’t enough chips. That’s partly why both new-car and used-car prices have climbed 37 percent in the last year or two, he said.

“The semiconductor-based integrated circuit is the ‘DNA’ of technology and has transformed essentially all segments of the economy, from agriculture and transportation to healthcare, telecommunications, and the Internet,” says the White House report. “The semiconductor industry is a major engine for U.S. economic growth and job creation.”

Beside supply-chain and inflation problems, Graves said, producing chips is essential for national security.

“We can’t wait ….,” he said, addressing the Albany County crowd. “You’re shovel ready. You have the team work, the collaboration in place.”

Graves said he expects the United States Innovation and Competition Act to pass in the House of Representatives in the coming weeks.

“Every day we wait and don’t pass the legislation,” said Graves, “is another day we fall behind competitors.

The House needs to pass the act for the American people, he said, “so that we can win the future.”