By Sen. Sherrod Brown
Contributing columnist
Last week we delivered a big win for Ohio: the investment necessary to complete the historic Intel project in New Albany.
This new investment is all possible because we passed the CHIPS Act. It will boost Intel’s initial investment, creating additional jobs and building a new regional chipmaking ecosystem, anchored by the construction of two leading-edge logic fabs and expanded leading-edge foundry capacity.
For decades now, we haven’t manufactured nearly enough in this country. America invented the semiconductor. Yet today, 90 percent of them are made overseas.
We passed the CHIPS Act to end that, and to bring the production of semiconductor chips back home where it belongs: to America – and to Ohio.
And this past week we saw the law in action. On Wednesday, we announced that Intel was chosen for additional federal investment, made possible by the CHIPS Act, that’s necessary for completing this project in Ohio.
This investment will create 10,000 new Ohio jobs. It will mean work for 7,000 union workers in the skilled trades over 10 years, and 3,000 workers in Intel’s fabs.
These chips are one of the most important inputs in the modern economy. They’re in everything – washing machines, trucks, and nearly all manufacturing equipment.
In fact, semiconductor chips are so critical to Ohio that shortages in 2020 and 2021 caused huge damage to our economy. Ford and GM plants in Lima and Toledo were forced to temporarily close. Navistar in Springfield, Kenworth in Chillicothe, and Whirlpool in Findlay all faced challenges.
We wrote the CHIPS Act to stop Ohio manufacturers from depending on long supply chains overseas and to make the U.S. and Ohio a global leader in semiconductor innovation and production.
This is an industry that’s vital to our national and economic security, and that requires massive upfront investment. Other countries are investing in their own semiconductor industries. We couldn’t allow the U.S. to fall further behind. To make this happen and to bring Intel to Ohio, we needed a national strategy and national investment.
This was a major, nonpartisan effort, across business and government. Former Senator Portman and I worked together to write the bill. We worked with Ohio business leaders like the Chamber of Commerce and the Columbus Partnership, leaders in the industry like Intel, Governor DeWine and his office, and labor leaders in the Ohio Building Trades.
Once we passed it into law, we immediately got to work to ensure Ohio was in the best position possible to receive the investment. We made sure our application was the strongest in the country.
Today, all those years of effort are paying off. This investment is going to allow this project to reach its full potential, and it’s going to help us bury the term “rust belt” once and for all.
Sherrod Brown is the senior U.S. senator from Ohio.
