Osceola grant ensures that tech funding arrives from space
All Floridians can agree to celebrate Osceola County, one of only 21 winners among over 500 applications for economic development grants in what would later become the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. It’s a major win for Florida.
Big tech companies haven’t made new major investment announcements in the state yet. Osceola’s success proves the strength of plans to build a tech hub in Central Florida.
Congress named the bipartisan bill after Creating Helpful Incentives for the Production of Semiconductors (CHIPS) in America. Chips have strategic value because they are a key part of products you use every day, like your car.
They also play a critical role in defense. For example, the Javelin missiles defending Ukraine have 250,000 chips each, said Lockheed executive Reeves Valentine.
Together with Raytheon in Arizona, Lockheed Martin makes the Javelin closer to home in Orlando, but today most chips are produced overseas in Taiwan and other tech hubs. Valentine said at a recent Florida Defense
Support meeting that the Osceola grant should bring new jobs to the state and help create an important supply chain infrastructure for the country.
That’s exactly the case that won Osceola County its $51 million grant. The county dedicated public land south of Orlando to a plan called NeoCity, an industrial park close to the country’s main spaceport, a shipping port, an airport, and train system.
A key fact here is that the project is developed in partnership with the University of Central Florida, the first producer of aerospace engineers in the nation, and other universities in the state.
The education component is one of the recommendations the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology gave in its report about revitalizing the U.S. semiconductor industry. The report recommends investing a portion of the CHIPS funds “towards creating a national microelectronics training network.”
The reason is that the country needs not just the money but the workforce if it is to produce at home the most advanced chips. Our state, mainly Central Florida, already has semiconductor plants, but none using the most advanced chip manufacturing systems, according to industry association
SEMI and the American Semiconductor Academy initiative.
NeoCity can succeed building on its current strength in the defense sector and diversifying towards chip applications for AI, transportation, and energy, using the CHIPS Act as the springboard to seize a bigger share of the global technology investment and jobs. If it can make it work, as NeoCity’s motto says, the future is bright.