Commerce Department quietly announces 7 new equity stakes in private companies

The Department of Commerce quietly announced this week it will designate more than $870 million in federal incentives for semiconductor manufacturing in exchange for a minority equity stake in seven companies.

In a blog post Wednesday, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) said Commerce’s CHIPS Research and Development Office signed letters of intent with seven companies to provide a combined $874 million in federal funding under the landmark CHIPS and Science Act.

The financial awards will be used to conduct research and development on critical technologies and advanced integrated photonics — a microchip technology that uses light instead of electricity to transfer and process data. It will also be used for research and development on compute architectures and memory for computing and artificial intelligence systems, according to NIST.

“The Department will receive a minority, non-controlling........

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