Congressional representatives from Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse are working together to try and get a federal designation as a Regional Tech Hub.
Rep. Joe Morelle (D-25) is helping coordinate the application, and he’s working with both Democratic and Republican lawmakers from across the three cities, including Democrat Brian Higgins and Republicans Nick Langworthy, Marc Molinaro, Claudia Tenney and Brandon Williams.
Along with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, (D-NY), the two lawmakers say that getting this federal designation could bring millions of dollars of investment into the region in areas such as semiconductor research and manufacturing.
Morelle and the other lawmakers say that the Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse areas already have a lot of the higher education and technical expertise needed to support this regional hub.
“There’s so much potential, said Morelle. “The challenge has been, can we have enough capital invested to really accelerate the development of all this work. And that’s what the federal dollars will do, is really to sort of supercharge these regions.”
Tenney said that reliance on foreign countries for semiconductors can “cause shortages, economic harm and the undermining of our national security,” and she said that designating this region as a Tech Hub will help make national supply chains more secure and self-reliant while bringing more jobs to the area.
Schumer said he has written to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on behalf of Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse, making the case that their proposal for a Regional Tech Hub “is best suited to help drive forward stronger semiconductor and broader microelectronics industries for the entire nation.”
Morelle is hoping the bipartisan cooperation among the upstate lawmakers continues in other ways.
“I believe this is an opportunity for us to really begin to develop these partnerships among our regions in ways that we’ve never envisioned,” said Morelle. “I think it’s really good not only for the regional tech hub competition at the federal level, but I think this is going to bear a lot of fruit in the years to come by just increased cooperation between our three metro regions.”
