By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Commerce Division mentioned Tuesday it plans to award $50 million to HP (NYSE:) to assist the enlargement and modernization of an present firm facility in Oregon that can enhance key semiconductor applied sciences.
The proposed funding will assist applied sciences that serve life sciences instrumentation and expertise {hardware} utilized in synthetic intelligence functions and different tasks, the division mentioned.
Congress in August 2022 authorised a $39 billion subsidy program for U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and associated parts together with $75 billion in authorities lending authority and a 25% funding tax credit score value an estimated $24 billion.
The tasks construct on HP’s experience in microfluidics and microelectromechanical programs with funding set to assist manufacturing of silicon gadgets important in life sciences lab tools utilized in drug discovery, singlecell analysis, and cell line improvement.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo mentioned the proposed $50 million funding for the Corvallis, Oregon, HP campus “shows how we are investing in every part of the semiconductor supply chain and how important semiconductor technology is to innovation in drug discovery and critical life science equipment.”
The division mentioned the expertise will enhance companion establishments together with Harvard Medical College, the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, and Merck.
HP CEO Enrique Lores mentioned the funding “provides HP with an opportunity to modernize and expand our facility to further invest in our microfluidics technology.”
The division has introduced time period sheets with 17 corporations providing greater than $32 billion in grants and as much as $29 billion in loans.
It additionally made different main deliberate awards together with $6.4 billion to South Korea’s Samsung (KS:) to develop chip manufacturing in Texas.
Intel (NASDAQ:) received $8.5 billion in grants in March whereas Taiwan’s TSMC clinched $6.6 billion to construct out its American manufacturing and reminiscence chip maker Micron Expertise (NASDAQ:) received $6.1 billion to assist fund home chip manufacturing facility tasks.
All of the awards have but to be finalized and quantities may change after the Commerce Division conducts due diligence.
