Foxconn giving $100M gift to university
MADISON, Wis. — Foxconn Technology Group announced Monday that it will invest $100 million in research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, making it one of the largest gifts in the school’s history that comes as the Taiwanbased electronics giant builds a factory in southeastern Wisconsin that would be the company’s first of its kind in North America.
Foxconn CEO Terry Gou and UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank signed an agreement that also calls for the creation of a science and technology institute on the UW-Madison campus that will collaborate with the display screen manufacturing plant, which is being built in Mount Pleasant, about 100 miles southeast of Madison.
Foxconn, the world’s leading electronics manufacturer, chose Wisconsin for its first plant outside Asia after receiving generous incentives from the state. Foxconn said the manufacturing campus could cost up to $10 billion and eventually employ 13,000 people.
Finding those workers was expected to be a challenge in a state with low unemployment. The deal announced Monday would provide a conduit of potential interns and em-
ployees from the state’s largest university to the Foxconn plant.
“We’re going to be a longterm community member in the state of Wisconsin,” said Foxconn executive Louis Woo. “We see ourselves as an enabler of talent — that’s creation of jobs. We also see us as an enabler of technology.”
The Foxconn Institute for Research in Science and Technology, to be created under the agreements, will be a hub for technological innovation and provide an environment for research and development initiatives in medical science, materials science, computer and data-driven science.
The institute’s main location will be at the Foxconn manufacturing campus in Racine County, but it will also have a presence in Madison.
The bulk of Foxconn’s $100 million, which Blank said was the largest industry research partnership in university history, will go toward constructing a new building on the engineering campus.
“I’m excited,” Blank said. “You don’t get $100 million gifts very often.”
Foxconn has also announced plans to open its North American office headquarters in Milwaukee and technology centers that could employ hundreds in Eau Claire and Green Bay. Gov. Scott Walker has praised those investments, saying it shows the positive statewide economic impact of the project.
Government incentives in Racine County could top $4 billion, the largest in U.S. history for a foreign corporation.
Wisconsin voters appear torn on the value of the project. In a Marquette University Law School poll last week, 44 percent of registered voters said the state is paying more than the plant is worth. A majority, 61 percent, said the plant would substantially improve the Milwaukee-area economy, but an equal percentage said businesses where they live will not directly benefit.