Federal, state and local leaders will be on hand Friday to officially break ground on Micron’s $100 billion project in central New York. Officials say one reason the groundbreaking is so important, is the message it sends to other companies who may want to work within the Micron orbit.
The optics of dignitaries shoveling a piece of dirt at the Micron Site in Onondaga County is key, because it puts the massive megafab project on the world stage, according to County Executive Ryan McMahon. And that’s important while the county tries to attract other companies to central New York.
"That's going to send a very clear message to a lot of people around the world," McMahon said. "The project's happening, this is what to expect. If you do business with Micron, and you want to do business with Micron, you're going to want to be right here in the community, that's going to host the largest investment in their company's history."
There aren’t many U.S. companies that support Micron’s computer chip building capability. Many of them are in Asia, in places like Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore. McMahon was in Japan last month, and said he had fruitful talks with some companies. He said these firms would want to be in place three to six months before Micron begins production.
"hat's going to drive a timeline where the dozens of companies that we have been courting, some of them have already committed to us, that they will have to essentially figure out if they want to be here in central New York, you know, within the next six months."
Micron expects the first of four fab plants begin production in 2030.
