31 Communities Selected As Regional Tech Hubs Eligible For Parts Of $500M Federal Pie
The Biden administration has designated 31 communities as regional tech hubs in an effort to spur private investment in technologies critical to economic growth and job creation.
Designated Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs across 32 states and Puerto Rico will have the opportunity to compete for up to $75M in federal grants, the White House announced in a fact sheet. The Department of Commerce's total funding pool is half a billion dollars, Bloomberg reported.
The goal is to generate technology-related economic activity outside of traditional coastal tech hubs like San Francisco, according to Bloomberg.
The program was authorized by the $53B CHIPS and Science Act that President Joe Biden signed in August 2022. It will help distribute the benefits of government subsidies and about $500B in private capital that have come into the advanced manufacturing space since Biden took office, according to Bloomberg.
The hubs will bring together private industry, state and local governments, higher education institutions, labor unions, tribal communities and nonprofits to focus on developing and growing innovative industries including semiconductors, clean energy, biotechnology, artificial intelligence and precision medicine, according to the White House.
Nearly three-quarters of the hubs are in small and rural communities, the fact sheet says.
Each hub will focus on developing or improving designated technology. Hubs include the South Florida Climate Resilience Tech Hub, which aims to advance U.S. leadership in infrastructure solutions for the global climate crisis; the Texoma Semiconductor Tech Hub, which aims to unify existing and planned semiconductor supply chain infrastructure; and the Pacific Northwest Mass Timber Tech Hub, which will focus on mass timber design and manufacturing.
The CHIPS and Science Act authorized $10B for the program, but lawmakers appropriated only 5%, resulting in a $500M pot, Bloomberg reported.
The 31 hubs were narrowed down from more than 370 applications across 49 states and four territories, per the fact sheet. Since the hubs again have to compete for $40M to $70M in federal funding, most won't get monetary support, according to Bloomberg.
This round of designations will be treated as a pilot, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said, per Bloomberg. The agency will separately award 29 development grants to help applicants prepare for future rounds of funding.
Raimondo has previously emphasized that the program needs funding proportional to the interest it has garnered.
“I have heard from more members of Congress on tech hubs than anything else that I’ve done — it’s unbelievable,” Raimondo told lawmakers in September, according to Bloomberg.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration chose seven regional hydrogen hubs to receive as much as $7B in federal funding to help develop hydrogen as a clean, sustainable energy source. Last month, the Pentagon awarded $238M to eight tech hubs to drive investment in chips with military applications, Bloomberg reported.
