New York is gearing up to become a global semiconductor hub.

With Micron’s new site just outside Syracuse attracting additional advanced manufacturing and supply chain partners to the region, areas across the state are all hoping those partners will invest in their communities, including Broome County.

What You Need To Know

Broome County has been experiencing economic decline over the years and has one of the highest poverty rates in New York state

County leaders are hoping to lean into the state’s surging semiconductor ecosystem to uplift the region

Broome County brings to the table a strong history of advanced manufacturing, readily available infrastructure and is currently working to prepare a tech park

“We are a hub of innovation, we are a hub of state-of-the-art research and development,” Stacey Duncan, the president of both the county’s Industrial Development Agency and Binghamton’s Chamber of Commerce, said.

A wall of Patents at Universal Instruments showcases the area’s history of innovation. (Spectrum News 1/Natalie Mooney)

Many know the area as the birthplace of IBM, but it was also where Edwin Link invented the first flight simulator, which helped train World War II pilots. It’s where Guglielmo Marconi, “the father of wireless communication,” successfully sent a 350-word message to a moving train, setting the stage for text messaging decades later. And it was a Broome County Camera Company, Ansco, that created the first camera to take color photos in space.

Now, only remnants of those legendary leaps forward remain. Much of the IBM complex has been demolished, the Link trainers are nothing more than artifacts in a museum and the old Ansco Factory is now mixed-use housing.

The region has been in a state of economic decline, with thousands of jobs and people leaving the area over the years.

According to the New York State Community Action Association, Broome County had the highest poverty rate of any county in upstate New York in 2025, with almost 19% of the population living in poverty. That’s more than other large upstate counties like Albany, Erie, Monroe, Orange and Onondaga, which all have between 12 and 14% of their populations living in poverty.

But with Micron coming to Central New York, Broome County believes it has an opportunity to build a better future by reinvigorating the industry that defined its past.

“Manufacturing is our, I think, fastest-growing employment sector right now in Broome County, and It hasn’t been that way for a long time,” Duncan said.

Duncan says despite the county’s consistent economic decline, the region is well equipped to support the state’s semiconductor goals.

“We are making things that are contributing to a global economy here in this region and here in Broome County,” Duncan said.

Students work at the former Huron Campus. (Spectrum News 1/Natalie Mooney)

The four fabs planned for Micron’s Clay site will produce dynamic random-access memory chips, but those chips can’t do anything until they’re connected to power. That’s where a process called packaging comes in — the Southern Tier’s specialty.

“Broome County has a rich history of doing advanced packaging,” Bred Bennett, the president of Universal Instruments, explained. “It really kind of started here with IBM many, many, many, many years ago, BU was one of the leading institutes in the world leading advanced packaging, Universal was the only company in North America that’s doing this level of business. We collaborate well together.”

In addition to the expertise and product the area can provide, Broome County also has the infrastructure needed to attract semiconductor supply chain-related customers to the region, like IBM’s former Huron Campus.

IBM’s former Huron Campus. (Spectrum News 1/Natalie Mooney)

“We have the facilities, we have the power, we have the ability to handle chemicals, ability to handle exhaust and other things and big equipment like this,” Mark Poliks, a former IBM employee who works at Binghamton University, said.

The Huron Campus is currently being used to support Binghamton University research and innovation and prepare students to enter the semiconductor workforce.

“We’re doing research that’s also helping to train them for a job at Micron or GlobalFoundries or the other corporations that we have across the state as well,” Poliks said.

Duncan hopes the combination of a trained workforce, readily available manufacturing infrastructure, and Broome County’s legacy of innovation will put the region at a unique advantage to not only support the high-tech growth happening across the state, but uplift the entire Southern Tier as well.

Binghamton University is preparing the future semiconductor workforce. (Spectrum News 1/Natalie Mooney)

“It’s incredibly exciting and kind of feels like a full-circle moment for somebody who’s grown up here and who’s seen kind of the arc of an industry,” Duncan said.

Broome County is also working to prepare a technology park, similar to the White Pine Park that Onondaga County made, which attracted Micron. The project recently finished its public comment period and residents in the rural area around the planned park expressed frustration and dissatisfaction with the plan and say they do not want to see the plan go through.

Spectrum News 1 will have more on that project soon. In the meantime, the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement can be found here.