In the countryside near Columbus, in the heart of Ohio. This Friday, September 9, monstrous bulldozers are surveying a huge construction site and the entire economic and political elite of the region has made the trip. It is a question of launching the site of Intel, which will invest 20 billion dollars (19.7 billion euros) to build a huge factory of microprocessors and try to catch up technologically behind the Koreans of Samsung and the Taiwanese from TSMC.
The approximately 400 guests in their Sunday best are delighted with the project, which will create 3,000 direct jobs and 7,000 indirect, particularly in construction. “With Intel, Ohio is now on the map. Our children will no longer need to go to work on the West Coast or in Austin, Texas. It’s a huge leap forward.”estimates the elected representative of the local senate, the republican Jay Hottinger, who speaks kindly with fellow Democrats, who are just as delighted. “Job creation is a cross-partisan issue, we work together. »
Joe Biden made the trip for this ceremony, a few weeks before the mid-term elections to praise the success of his industrial policy. The event had been postponed this summer, Intel refusing to launch the project until the American Congress had voted the immense Biden plan of subsidies (52 billion dollars) to the microprocessor industry, which was ended July. A boon for Ohio, a Midwestern state that has suffered deindustrialization since the steel crisis in the 1980s and voted largely for Republican Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. “The industrial Midwest is back”rejoiced the American president. “It’s time to bury the rust belt label [Rust Belt] and replace it with that of Silicon Heartland”, heartland affectionately meaning the “deep country”.
American weakness
The project will entail a huge construction site, with a pit 20 meters deep and which, according to Intel Vice President Keyvan Esfarjani, will consume as much steel as “8 Eiffel Towers” and as much concrete as the tallest skyscrapers. Intel employees are not unionized, but the site will benefit construction workers who themselves are. Mr. Biden spoke with them at length before his speech: “These people are mine, that’s where I come from”, said the Democratic president. The establishment of Intel will require the training of manpower, and the company announced the financing of eight educational projects to the tune of 17 million dollars to train engineers and technicians.
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