TOWN OF POUGHKEEPSIE – Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney was at the Poughkeepsie IBM facility on Wednesday to tour the mainframe production facility and tout the House-passed America Competes Act. The House version passed with bipartisan support and the Senate also passed a similar bill. The two are going to be blended together for final approval.
Maloney’s tour of the building where the “IBM Z-series” mainframes are built was followed by him speaking in support of the bill.
“It will take $50 billion and invest it in building semiconductor manufacturing here in the United States. This is a jobs issue but it’s also a national security issue,” he said.
The House bill includes:
- $52 billion for CHIPS for America Act which will incentivize private-sector investments and continued American leadership in semiconductor fabrication and will help address supply chain disruptions and ensure that more semiconductors are produced here at home.
- $45 billion to improve our nation’s supply chains and strengthen our economy and national security by preventing shortages of critical goods and ensuring that more of these goods are made right here in the United States.
The proposed national center, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, seeks to use “Federal funding to help establish a public-private consortium to build and operate a National Semiconductor Technology Center to serve as a hub for conducting advanced semiconductor research and prototyping that strengthens the domestic ecosystem. The Center would bring together industry, government, national labs, and academia around a common roadmap to drive innovations in semiconductors and develop the semiconductor workforce.”
“It is long past time that we build things in America again. Thanks to America COMPETES Act, we will reinvigorate American manufacturing and set our economy up to compete with rivals like China for generations to come,” said Maloney. He said he toured the IBM Poughkeepsie facility “to see first-hand how the COMPETES Act will create jobs and grow our economy here in the Hudson Valley. With these investments, New York and the Hudson Valley can become a powerhouse in high-tech manufacturing.”
IBM manufactures the Z-series mainframes in Poughkeepsie and relies on components produced around the globe. The pandemic has created supply-chain issues that have been magnified by shipping issues that have developed. “The best way to avoid supply chain issues is to build things in the United States again,” Maloney said. He also noted that American production of mainframe components strengthens national security by removing countries like China from having access to the manufacturing of the components currently used.
Maloney doted on IBM during the event, noting that “four of the top five airlines, 45 of the top 50 banks, seven of the world’s top 10 retailers all power their companies on computers built right here in Poughkeepsie,” referencing the Z-series mainframes that are built in Poughkeepsie and shipped around the globe.
