“The IBM news in Poughkeepsie is good news for all of us,” Westchester County Executive George Latimer told the Business Journals about the technology giant”™s planned $20 billion Hudson Valley investment. IBM announced the plan to invest and expand operations in the Hudson Valley during the Oct. 6 visit to its Poughkeepsie facility by President Biden.
“I look at us as a region, the Hudson Valley region, so something that advantages Dutchess, Orange, Rockland, Putnam benefits Westchester as well,” Latimer said. “There”™s an obvious immediate benefit in that IBM, which is headquartered here in Westchester County will expand in an area not too far away and create good jobs. People will live anywhere in the region. That helps us with housing values in Westchester and the adjacent counties and, of course, Poughkeepsie, East Fishkill, Kingston, were all major IBM operations centers in years past. It”™s definitely good news for us.”
Latimer pointed out that Regeneron”™s expansion in Tarrytown and Morgan Stanley”™s expansion in what was the old Texaco headquarters in Harrison are good signs for the region as well as Westchester. He also underscored that the county”™s own efforts to help build new businesses through its incubator programs and the planned North 80 bioscience and technology center have spillover benefits for the region.
“Industries have to be somewhat clustered around one another. We talk about Silicon Valley in California, Route 128 in the Boston area. We are obviously different counties, we have different immediate economics, but this is good news for the region. I salute it and I think this is another sign of the viability of this area of the state,” Latimer said.
President Biden had arrived in the Hudson Valley aboard Air Force One, which landed at New York Stewart International Airport shortly before noon on Oct. 6. After touching down, the specialized version of a Boeing 747 taxied to parking at the Air National Guard section of the airport.
Greeting President Biden on arrival were Gov. Kathy Hochul, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, Rep. Patrick Ryan, Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus, Brigadier General Gary Charlton, commander of the 105th Airlift Wing and his wife Susan.
Biden and Hochul hugged and the president held her hands as they talked. Biden spent approximately eight minutes chatting with those who greeted him at the airport.
Biden’s motorcade to IBM left the airport at 12:05 p.m. At IBM’s facility on Route 9 in Poughkeepsie, company Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna escorted Biden and other dignitaries on a tour that began in a warehouse.
They were told a brief history of IBM as they walked over to an area where old IBM mainframe computers were set up for comparison with newer equipment. Biden examined the latest computers and the chips that they use. Biden chatted and shook hands with some employees waiting for him in the area.
“More is going to change in the next 10 years than it has in the last 40,” Biden said.
In a speech before an audience of IBM employees and invited guests, Krishna formally announced IBM’s plan to spend $20 billion over the next ten years in expanding its research, development and manufacturing operations in the Hudson Valley.
“Poughkeepsie is the place where we manufacture the state-of-the-art computers and we export these made-in-America computers all over the world,” Krishna said. “Poughkeepsie is also the heart of a broader ecosystem. We have other sites in Yorktown Heights and Albany. We are helping to push the boundaries of semiconductor design and manufacturing. From basic science to pushing the limits of semiconductor technology, and harnessing the power of quantum (computing) the future of computing is happening right here in New York’s Hudson Valley.”
In his remarks, President Biden underscored the potential for the newly-passed CHIPS and Science Act to be the catalyst for bringing massive computer chip manufacturing back to the U.S. He praised the Hudson Valley for being a place of innovation in manufacturing that in the past ranged from typewriters to cough drops.
“It”™s here now where the Hudson Valley could become the epicenter of the future of quantum computing, the most advanced and fastest computing ever, ever seen in the world,” Biden said. “Quantum computing has the potential to transform everything, from how we create new medicines to how we power artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. It”™s technology that is vital to our economy and equally important to our national security.”
Biden pointed out that the U.S. faces new tough competition from China and that lobbyists working for China campaigned against the CHIPS Act.
“This is about economic security,” Biden said. “It”™s about national security. And it”™s about good-paying jobs you can raise a family on. Jobs now. Jobs for the future. Jobs in every part of our country. And that”™s what we”™re going to see here in this factory in the beautiful Hudson Valley: people of all ages, all races, all backgrounds ”” with advanced degrees to no degrees ”” working side by side, doing the most sophisticated manufacturing the world has ever seen.”
When the IBM visit was over, Biden’s motorcade went to Hudson Valley Regional Airport in Poughkeepsie, formerly Dutchess County Airport, where the Marine One helicopter was waiting to fly him to an appearance in Red Bank, New Jersey.
