Micron Technology CEO says the Clay semiconductor plant will help grow U.S. memory production

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) CEO Sanjay Mehrotra says an “investment of this scale” is simply not possible without “significant” government and community support.

Mehrotra commented during Tuesday’s announcement that Micron plans to invest $100 billion over the next 20-plus years on a semiconductor-manufacturing campus at the White Pine Commerce Park in the town of Clay.

In the last few decades, he noted, “consistent and strategic” investment by foreign governments meant semiconductor-manufacturing projects would increase overseas and the result was “predictable.”

“Today, only two percent of the world’s memory is made here in the U.S. But we are going to change that,” Mehrotra said. “We are going to change that and the New York fab is central to Micron’s strategy to grow U.S. memory production to 10 percent of the global supply in the next decade. And to even a bigger percentage in the decade beyond.”

Such manufacturing capability will enable U.S. supply chain “resilience and security.” Grant funding available through the federal CHIPS and Science Act and New York’s Green CHIPS legislation will allow projects like this to start construction in the U.S. at a cost “competitive with the rest of the world.”

“We expect to begin preparing the site in Clay in 2023 and begin construction in 2024. Production output would ramp in latter half of the decade to meet industry demand,” Mehrotra said.