In Swing State Arizona, an $8.5 Billion CHIPS Grant Spells ‘Jobs’ More Than Geopolitics

Article originally posted on NBC News on March 25, 2024

In the booming Phoenix metro area, Washington policymakers’ rare bipartisan push to bolster national security in their high-tech arms race with China brings major enthusiasm for something more basic: jobs.

A fresh influx of $8.5 billion in CHIPS and Science Act funding to help Intel build two semiconductor plants and upgrade an existing one in Chandler, 30 minutes southeast of downtown Phoenix, is expected to bring thousands of high-paying roles to the area.

“That’s what the city needs — jobs,” said Alfred Garza, a lifelong Chandler resident, who said he has watched it balloon over the years “to the point where, my God, they took all the natural beauty.”

“I hope it helps the community, because, look, this side of the city is still run-down,” he said. “Intel, I think, would be a good beginning.”

The tech giant already employs 13,000 people in the Phoenix area, and the White House forecasts the Arizona projects will create 3,000 more manufacturing roles and at least twice that many construction jobs — on par with the gains expected in Ohio, the second of four states, along with New Mexico and Oregon, where the federal grants are helping Intel expand its chip operations.

“Made in America is good — to me and a bunch of others sitting up in our community,” Garza said.

It’s a sentiment that officials on the ground in Chandler were happy to talk up Wednesday.

“The CHIPS and Science Act is a huge jobs creator,” National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard told NBC News, adding that the impact would go beyond Intel’s own workforce. “That also leads to all kinds of nearby restaurants’ having business, nearby service small businesses’ starting up and hiring workers of their own.”

The funding for Intel, which also includes up to $11 billion in loans, is the latest award in a $52.7 billion pool that began being doled out late last year. The first grant, of just $35 million, went to help BAE Systems expand its chipmaking for fighter jets and other applications in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Now, much larger awards are heading out the door, focusing largely on semiconductor heavyweights like Intel, the only U.S. firm that both designs and builds high-end chips domestically.

But relative to the Biden administration’s billions of dollars in other domestic spending — namely from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — the CHIPS funding’s primary purpose isn’t to juice the economy. It’s to insulate the country’s chip supplies from an intensifying rivalry with China, whose ambitions to take control of Taiwan, a self-governing island and global chip production hub, helped speed the bipartisan package through Congress in 2022.