Promise of jobs
New center part of $2B investment in Albany over the next five years
State-ibm partnership expected to create 326 new computer chip industry jobs over five years at SUNY Poly.
The $300 million artificial intelligence center that New York state is establishing at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Albany in partnership with IBM is expected to create 326 new computer chip industry jobs over the next five years.
In its deal with the state announced on Feb. 7, IBM has committed to spend $2 billion over the next five years on research and development in Albany and at its main research lab in Yorktown Heights on both the AI center and the Center for Semiconductor Research, a longstanding computer chip research program at SUNY Poly.
The job commitments of the deal include the 326 new jobs, 316 of which will be in Albany, plus the retention of 630 jobs at SUNY Poly that are connected with IBM’S current research activities at SUNY Poly, according to SUNY Poly spokesman Steve Ference.
The jobs covered under the deal are a mix of IBM positions as well as SUNY Poly research staff positions that are funded through the Research Foundation for SUNY. Jobs with IBM’S private sector research partners in Albany are also included.
Ference said that the formal contract between IBM and the state will lay out “specific annual job creation milestones.”
The board of Empire State Development, the state’s economic development arm, will also vote to approve the $300 million grant that will go to the Research
Foundation to pay for the equipment at what IBM is calling the IBM Research AI Hardware Center.
The Center for Semiconductor Research was established in 2005 and is one of the main computer chip research programs at SUNY Poly.
The deal between IBM and the state extends IBM’S participation in the CSR through 2023, which is expected to also support jobs at SUNY Poly, including those of IBM’S suppliers and equipment support technicians, Ference said.
“There are estimated to be hundreds of additional private sector employees that work at the Albany campus and are much more likely to be retained primarily due to the (Center for Semiconductor Research’s) presence and activities,” Ference said.