‘A once-in-a-generation investment in America itself,’ he said
President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act into law. The bipartisan bill, approved by Congress in late July, will channel $52.7 billion into American semiconductor manufacturing and research efforts and pumps billions more into federal scientific research & development (R&D).
“The future is going to be made in America,” said the President, adding that the law was “a once-in-a-generation investment in America itself.”
The CHIPS Act earmarks $52.7 billion for American semiconductor research and development (R&D), manufacturing, and workforce development. Thirty-nine billion is earmarked for manufacturing subsidies. Another $13.2 billion is set aside for semiconductor R&D and to support workforce development. The law also creates a 25% tax credit for companies that make capital investments in domestic semiconductor manufacturing equipment and facilities.
The $1.5 billion earmarked for wireless network disaggregation efforts got a big thumbs up from the Open RAN Policy Coalition at the time of the bill’s passage in the U.S. House of Representatives in late July. The Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund will be managed by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The $1.5 billion will be used “for promoting and deploying wireless technologies that use open and interoperable radio access networks. This investment will boost U.S. leadership in wireless technologies and their supply chains,” said the White House.
There’s also $2 billion baked in to support legacy automobile and defense semiconductor technology, and another $500 million to the CHIPS for America International Technology Security and Innovation Fund, which supports “international information and communications technology security and semiconductor supply chain activities, including supporting the development and adoption of secure and trusted telecommunications technologies, semiconductors, and other emerging technologies.”
The law also pumps billions more into efforts to create regional technology hubs aimed at reducing supply chain issues for advanced manufacturing and communications technology. NASA will get a jolt in the arm from the new CHIPS and Science Act, too. There are funds to spur STEM education, especially expanding access to STEM education in rural and historically underserved regions.
The National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science feature prominently in the distribution of this flush of federal funding.
“The CHIPS and Science Act will establish a technology, innovation, and partnerships directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF) to focus on fields like semiconductors and advanced computing, advanced communications technology, advanced energy technologies, quantum information technologies, and biotechnology. It will strengthen commercialization of research and technology, ensuring that what is invented in America is made in America. The Act will also reauthorize and expand fundamental and use-inspired research at the Department of Energy Office of Science and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to sustain U.S. leadership in the sciences and engineering as the engine for American innovation,” said the White House.
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