12/26/2011 10:27:00 AM

Times Union: Tech engine revs up

Times Union

The Capital Region may never become the next Silicon Valley, but this was the year the area became the epicenter for the manufacture and innovation of the most powerful computer chips in the world.

As 2011 comes to a close, 1,000 employees are on the job inside GlobalFoundries' $4.6 billion chip fab plant as it nears completion in Malta. And while the first shimmering silicon wafers — loaded with super-valuable integrated circuits — won't come off the assembly line until sometime next year, the site has become the engine of economic growth that its proponents long promised it would be. Along Route 9, buildings have sprouted with space for offices, stores and apartments catering to the high-tech juggernaut.

The seed for this boom was planted at the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, which has attracted $14 billion in private and public investment since 1994, when it was designated as a Center for Advanced Technology under then-Gov. Mario M. Cuomo.

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