Bipartisan CHIPS Act means ‘full steam ahead’ for Ohio Intel plant, Husted says

Passage of the CHIPS Act in Congress now means it’s full steam ahead for the Ohio Intel plant, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said Friday.

“Really what it does is provides the financing to go faster than we otherwise would have been able to do it,” Husted, speaking of the computer chip manufacturing facility being built in New Albany, near Columbus, told News Center 7′s James Rider.

“With the passage of the CHIPS Act, it’s full steam ahead.”

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The bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act (the Senate passed it Wednesday; The House passed it Thursday) will provide more than $50 billion to create incentives to help U.S. companies manufacture semiconductor chips, as well as research and development. Ohio will join 17 other states in producing chips.

Democrats in Congress have said the legislation will lower costs, make the United States more competitive and bolster national security by allowing the country to be less dependent on China for computer chips.

“This certainly will have a positive impact for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,” the lieutenant governor said. “A lot of the military systems that get built with advanced computer technology. The CHIPS Act will impact that in a very positive way.”

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Twenty-four House Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the bill.

“Computer chips are going to become even more important in the future because all of the things we call smart this, smart that whether it’s electric grid, your home heating system, your car,” Husted said. “They require more computing power.”

Intel chose the Buckeye state to build its $20 billion facility that will create an estimated 20,000 jobs. The project had been slowed because the CHIPS Act had been pending in Congress. The bill now is on its way to President Joe Biden, who is to sign it into law.

Husted said he never would have expected Ohio to land the largest semiconductor facility on the planet.

The next challenge, he said, will be trying to fill all of the jobs the Intel facility will create.