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U.S. to give $1.5 billion for computer-chip plant, heating up global race

The massive grant, part of the Chips Act, will help the U.S. establish a homegrown supply for some of the most critical components of modern life.

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February 19, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. EST
Workers in protective suits inside the “clean room” of GlobalFoundries' semiconductor factory in Malta, N.Y., in 2021. (Cindy Schultz for The Washington Post)
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The Biden administration will give $1.5 billion to help build a vast new computer-chip factory in New York state as part of an effort to strengthen the country’s ability to mass-produce the brains of modern consumer and military electronics.

The grant, formally unveiled Monday, is the third announced as part of the Chips and Science Act, a $52 billion program President Biden signed in 2022 in hopes of supercharging U.S. manufacturing of semiconductors, which are largely made overseas.