Senator John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul were co-sponsors of the CHIPS Act, which passed Congress in August 2022, and created the possibility of building up the semiconductor industry here in the United States.

“Call us the founding fathers (of the CHIPS Act),” Cornyn said during a chat Thursday at the Texas A&M Hotel and Conference Center. “I didn’t know much about semiconductors, but my staff told me you just need to remember that everything with an on/off switch has a semiconductor in it. I thought it was essential that we begin to establish our capacity to manufacture advanced semiconductors.”

As chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the U.S. House, McCaul understands the importance of getting more semiconductor manufacturing done here to help not just U.S. citizens but also in Taiwan where approximately 90 percent of the world’s semiconductor chips are made.

“During COVID, [the] supply chain was such a critical issue,” McCaul said. “If you look at Taiwan that’s where we’ve outsourced most of the advanced chip manufacturing. We believed that national security had to be prominent here. Pulling the supply chain out of Taiwan and into the United States to incentivize manufacturers in the United States through tax incentives and a grant program. The great thing is its working. Since the passage of CHIPS, we have had $450 billion reinvested in the United States toward manufacturing.”

According to Cornyn, $100 billion of that investment in the country has been in the state of Texas through companies like Samsung and Texas Instruments.

Both Cornyn and McCaul credited the state with being proactive in greasing the skids for semiconductors. Texas A&M has been a leader in the industry through its creation of the Semiconductor Institute. Though still not public via the university or city officials, a high-tech manufacturing facility expected to be built on the RELLIS campus in Bryan is a semiconductor plant, according to filings from the project owner America’s Foundry Bryan, LLC to the Office of Texas Comptroller of Accounts.

An economic impact analysis report shows the total capital investment for the project is over $108 billion across the next 40 years.

The project has received the greenlight from A&M’s Board of Regents and received approval for a lucrative tax abatement agreement from both the Brazos County Commissioners Court and the Bryan City Council. Local leaders with knowledge of the project are all under non-disclosure agreements regarding the project’s details.

“Texas A&M and our college and universities provide critical brainpower in terms of the research and development but also in terms of the training that is necessary for these good paying jobs,” Cornyn said. “The people who were here at the Semiconductor Institute are some of the people who are going to actually make this happen and take the legislation we’ve introduced and the resources that the federal government and the state has provided and turn it into reality.”

Among the things Cornyn and McCaul discussed in a press conference is that there is a plan for a national semiconductor center in the U.S. that would combine manufacturing, research and education. Texas is one of the places in the running for that project.

“One thing we put into the bill is a national center for technology and semiconductors,” said McCaul, whose wife, Linda, is the daughter of the late Lowry Mays, namesake of A&M’s Mays Business School, and who had three children attending A&M in recent years. “I think there will be several throughout the country, maybe two or three. We feel very optimistic that the secretary (of commerce) will pick Texas for one of those spots and that would be right here in Central Texas. I can’t tell you what a big deal that would be not just for A&M but for the state and the local economy.”

McCaul pointed out that semiconductors have brought the two flagship university systems in Texas together in their efforts to get the national center to Texas.

“They may fight on the football field but in this case A&M and the University of Texas are working together with both packaging and manufacturing and design to get this national center right in this area,” McCaul said.

A&M Chancellor John Sharp, in his final year at the helm before retirement, has promoted A&M as a center of the semiconductor industry.

“One of the great things about being in Texas is the whole CHIPS Act was sponsored by two Texans,” Sharp said. “You put McCaul and Cornyn together and everybody in Washington D.C. knows that this is where it all comes from. It just tends to focus everything more and more on the state of Texas, and can’t anything but good come from that.”

Thursday’s summit activities included three panel discussions on the role of government investment in semiconductors, where Texas stands in leading semiconductor solutions and training the next generation of semiconductor professionals.

Even though he will be a few months into his retirement by the time next year’s summit rolls around, Sharp is excited to see what the summit will become as the semiconductor industry grows in the state of Texas and Texas A&M’s role in the industry also grows.

“I think this is snowballing. Once this second one has happened with the kind of attendance and growth here and the recognition that A&M is one of the leaders in all this,” Sharp said. “I think four years from now, five years from now, I’m not sure we’re going to have room big enough for all this stuff as the industries and the different educational institutes become a part of it. It has its own inertia now and it’s going to be fine.”

During Wednesday’s first day of the summit in the Zone Club at Kyle Field, Greg Bonnen, a member of the Texas House of Representatives and chairman of the Texas House Committee on Appropriations, pointed out the ways the state has been a leader in technology in the past, starting with the invention of the integrated circuit by Texas Instruments in 1958. Now the state is ready to be a leader again in the field of semiconductors and chips.

“It’s such an esteemed group of people that are leading a critical industry for our country and for our state,” Bonnen said. “To speak to them was a little humbling because they know more about this than I do.”

Adrianna Cruz, the executive director for Texas Economic Development and Tourism in the office of the governor, spoke about the efforts of the state of Texas to include education as part of the semiconductor industry as most of the jobs in the industry require some form of higher education.

“I don’t think there is any question that Texas is going to take the mantle of leadership on chip manufacturing,” Sharp said. “I think this is where it’s going to be. We have the resources to do it, we have the brainpower to do it and we’re going to make sure we have the electricity and natural resources, including water, to make all this happen.”

Other presenters on Wednesday were Todd Younkin, CEO and president of the Semiconductor Research Corporation, and Sameer Pendharkar, vice president of technology development and a senior fellow at Texas Instruments.

“This is twice as big as it was last year,” Sharp said. “That’s probably reflective of A&M’s role in a lot of this. Chairman Bonnen, (Senator Joan) Huffman, the governor’s office have all heavily invested in this as they have invested in Texas A&M with our (semiconductor) research institute and so many other things.”