Schumer says Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse get designation as tech hub

Rochester, along with Buffalo and Syracuse, have won a key federal designation as a ‘Tech Hub.’

That news came early Monday morning from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, (D-NY), who said the three upstate metro areas will now be in “an exclusive group” of only 31 regions in the U.S. to compete for potentially billions of dollars in federal funding, creating what Schumer calls, a “semiconductor superhighway.”

The senator has been pushing for the designation for years, and he issued a statement saying that “Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse are officially on the road to becoming America’s semiconductor superhighway.”

Schumer said the three cities will now be able to compete for the next phase of a Tech Hubs program that will invest between $50 million and $75 million in each of 5 to 10 designated hubs, funding that the senator says can help transform upstate as a global hub for workforce training, innovation and manufacturing of semiconductor technology.

Schumer was in Rochester on Monday to talk about the designation, along with a number of other business and government leaders, including Micron’s CEO, Sanjay Mehrortra.

That company is planning a major project in the Syracuse area, one that is expected to eventually bring billions of dollars in investment and thousands of jobs to Upstate New York.

"The region's designation as a tech hub embraces the vision of why Micron chose Upstate New York… IT and partners across Rochester will be essential to training and developing the technicians engineers, scientists that Micron will need to succeed," said Mehrortra.

Rochester area government and business leaders have also been touting the Micron project as something that will have a beneficial spinoff impact on this area, since it will need to draw on the labor pool from across the upstate area as well as getting involvement from local colleges and universities.

Schumer said the tech hub designation will help attract other companies to the region.

"There's no greater national spotlight, no greater open for business sign to shine along the I-90 corridor to attract new companies from across America and across upstate New York, then being designated a tech hub," Schumer said.

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