Yesterday, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly delivered keynote remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) highlighting the regional economic impact of the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which included Sen. Kelly’s $52 billion plan to boost domestic microchip manufacturing.  

During his remarks, Sen. Kelly highlighted how the legislation will strengthen national security, create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs, and make Arizona a global hub for semiconductor design, testing, and manufacturing.  

On the long-term impact of the CHIPS and Science Act:  

We provided the dedicated funding for research and development programs as well to make sure that the next generation of microchips were discovered—this is an important part of this—meaning invented, designed, tested, and then built here in the United States.

On including incentives for semiconductor manufacturing suppliers:

Through the course of negotiating the CHIPS and Science Act, I pushed for us to go further on this–making sure that our incentive grants were for both the actual semiconductor manufacturing but also for the tool and equipment manufacturers. Those are often left out. Because in order to bring this manufacturing back to America, we need to boost the entire ecosystem that goes into creating microchips. Not just the manufacturing of the chip itself.   

On semiconductor manufacturing investments in Arizona:  

Just a few weeks ago when I was back in Arizona, I toured Intel’s new manufacturing facility… Their two new factories will create about 3,00 construction jobs and then 3,000 manufacturing jobs—high-paying jobs that you can actually raise a family on… And on the other side of the Phoenix area—the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is building their first manufacturing facility here in the United States. And thanks to the CHIPS Act’s passage, their investment in our country has now gone from $12 billion to $40 billion.  

On semiconductor manufacturing jobs for Arizonans:  

Last year, while I was working on the CHIPS law, I spoke with two women over a Zoom call. One of them she told me her story which I thought was pretty incredible. This woman was out of work for over a year. She had three kids. She was a single mom who could not find a job…She goes in her spam folder and she sees an ad for this thing called the Quick Start program at Estrella Mountain Community College. It is a ten-day program to give her a background in semiconductor manufacturing and it promised that at the end of the ten days, if you complete this, you would get an interview with a semiconductor manufacturing company. She figured what the heck and called and got somebody on the phone. She got into the program. She completed it. She got an interview with Intel and now she works at Intel as a semiconductor manufacturing technician. It’s a story we’re going to hear over and over again thanks to the CHIPS law.    

On the importance of investing in workforce development:  

But it’s also the human capital infrastructure. In Arizona, we have programs at Arizona State University and our community colleges that benefit from these regional investment programs. We need to be able to scale up their capacity to train the future engineers and technicians to do these jobs.