A New York-led coalition-with Rochester as its base-has been named the victor among three finalists for a federal photonics manufacturing institute.
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“Nobody on the face of the Earth knows photonics and photography and everything else in that ilk like people from Rochester”, Slaughter said during the news conference at the Greater Rochester worldwide Airport.
Schumer says it will bring thousands of jobs to Rochester. Slaughter was not able to say how many jobs the institute would create.
SUNY Polytechnic Institute and the University of Rochester have won a $110 million federal photonics manufacturing institute, according U.S. Sen.
Governor Cuomo and Vice President Joe Biden will appear in New York City next week to make what they call a “major infrastructure announcement”.
The hub could produce jobs for the region on the same scale as the Route 128 corridor in Massachusetts and Silicon Valley in California, Schumer said.
Schumer said he lobbied Defense Secretary Ashton Carter during a February 5 meeting a week prior to Carter’s Senate confirmation to succeed Chuck Hagel.
After winning a nationwide competition, Rochester will become the site of a new Photonics Institute.
The photonics institute will focus on using light to power microchips instead of electricity.
This is the second national manufacturing lab that SUNY Poly and other upstate universities have tried to win from the federal government.
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President Barack Obama has set a goal of establishing a network of 45 Institutes for Manufacturing Innovation around the nation to develop commercial applications for the new technology.
