President Joe Biden traveled Friday to the competitive battleground state of Ohio, where he touted the impact of the bipartisan Chips and Science Act that is set to boost domestic chipmaking and scientific research aimed at restoring America as the world's leader in manufacturing.
"It's fitting to break ground for America's future here in Ohio," he said, speaking from New Albany, where computer chipmaker Intel broke ground on a new multibillion-dollar semiconductor facility. "Think about it. There's kind of a tradition here: the Wright brothers, Neil Armstrong, John Glenn. They defined America's spirit - a spirit of daring and innovation."
Intel will build on that legacy, he said.
The company recently announced plans to invest $20 billion into the central Ohio area to build factories across 1,000 acres in Licking County that officials project will create roughly 20,000 jobs, including 7,000 union jobs and 3,000 that will pay an average of $135,000 annually.
"Intel is going to build the workforce of the future right here in Ohio," Biden said. "You may be wondering why this is a big deal for manufacturing, something so small in size as a fingerprint. Well, semiconductors are small computers that power everyday lives."
Part of Intel's investment also includes a $50 million partnership with local community colleges, Ohio State University and Central State University, the only HBCU in the state, to create a pipeline of workers.
"The need for these skills in America is growing and we're not keeping pace with that pipeline," said Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger, who himself earned an associate's degree at a local community college in Pennsylvania before taking a job as a technician at Intel decades ago. "Fewer U.S. students are choosing the sector of semiconductors and manufacturing and engineering as a career choice. We need to change that. We need to bring that workforce forward."
The visit served to further Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown's repeated calls to retire the Rust Belt moniker and replace it with the "Silicon Heartland."
"I want every mother and grandmother in the state of Ohio to say, 'You don't need to go to the coast," Gelsinger said. "'Come home and work right here.'"
Biden, who called the legislation that he signed into law last month "one of the most significant science and technology investments in our history," rattled off a slew of tangible shifts in the manufacturing landscape already underway as a result. In addition to Intel breaking ground on the new facility Friday, Micron announced it plans to invest $40 million in manufacturing to create memory chips, an investment that's set to add 40,000 new jobs. GlobalFoundaries and Qualcomm announced a $4 billion partnership to more than double their existing semiconductor manufacturing plans, and Wolfspeed is investing $5 billion in North Carolina to build a 445-acre manufacturing campus to make chip devices for electric vehicles, creating nearly 6,000 new jobs.
"China, Japan, South Korea, the EU - all these places are spending tens of billions of dollars to attract chip manufacturers to their country," he said. "But now industry leaders are choosing us, the United States."
The president's visit - though not an explicitly political one - also served to highlight the impact of his Democratic agenda in a perennial swing state with one of the most competitive Senate races that could decide whether Democrats hold control of the chamber.
Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan is facing Trump-backed author J.D. Vance, and the polling has them at a virtual tie: FiveThirtyEight's average of polls shows Ryan with a slim advantage, 45.2% to 44.6%.
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