SALINA -- The head of a high-tech manufacturing company considering setting up shop in Syracuse toured the potential site Monday.
APIC CEO Raj Dutt joined New York Senator Charles Schumer (D, New York) and local officials at the former General Electric facility at Electronics Park. If all goes as planned, the facility would be renovated to make way for a nanotechnology chip foundry which would bring 200 high-tech jobs to Syracuse. Dutt says engineers at the plant could make as much as $150 thousand while plant workers could earn $60 thousand or more.
APIC is a California-based company that manufactures high-tech nanochips. It is looking for a place to produce the next generation of nanotechnology chips using cutting-edge photonics technology. Schumer hopes the plant could help turn upstate New York into a world leader in nano technology. "The industry is growing so fast, it's like a runaway freight train. We're here to say we want that train to stop in Syracuse." Schumer told reporters.
Schumer is pushing the U.S. Navy to fund a partnership between defense contractor APIC and SUNY's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at Albany.
The Salina plan would manufacture nanochips for the Navy. The facility would be renovated and equipped with clean rooms and other high-tech equipment thanks to $16 million in funding from the State Assembly. Dutt says the nanochips would harvest light to process and transmit information at extremely high speeds.
Schumer hopes the plant will come to Syracuse by the end of this year.
