Micron broke snowy winter ground in New York on Friday to begin building a chip fab that promises to bring up to 50,000 jobs and much-needed computer memory production to US shores, as the AI boom continues to push memory prices up. The company's stock surged on the news that shovels had been put to work on the facility first announced in 2022, which had been bedeviled by environmental delays.
RMFG was launched in July 2024 by Kenneth Cassel, a 32-year-old college dropout and Y Combinator graduate, as well as a father of four. Cassel grew up in a large, blue-collar family in Texas and taught himself to code while working maintenance at a gas station company. "We're in this kind of renaissance where there's a lot of renewed interest in manufacturing," Cassel told Business Insider.
If you want to know where an automaker's priorities lie, sometimes it's better to look not at their latest cars for sale, but at where they're investing money for the future. One recent example: Hyundai expanding its manufacturing presence in the U.S., in part to deepen its customer base here. Another came at the end of November, with General Motors revealing that it will invest $550 million in two plants in Ohio and Michigan where specific components are made.
Convincing workers to spend their days welding at a shipyard, when they could earn a similar amount of money working behind the counter of an air-conditioned Buc-ee's, is one of the biggest obstacles to reviving the country's lagging $37 billion shipbuilding industry. At least that's the theory of U.S. Navy Secretary John Phelan, who, during his confirmation hearing in February, said he was handed down a mandate of " shipbuilding, shipbuilding, shipbuilding " by President Donald Trump.
If you've been visiting the site for the past couple of years or longer, then the name Apogee Bikes might sound familiar to you. We initially reported on the brand's launch announcement and unique frame design a couple of years ago. Just a few days later, we awarded the Apogee a MADE Show Best MTB in Show Award. It was a rideable prototype at the time, a proof-of-concept that turned heads and certainly generated some buzz for the fledgling brand.
The threat of tariffs is prompting a number of overseas automakers to tout the extent of their investment in the U.S., with Hyundai's big investment earlier in the year being a particularly high-profile example. (Albeit with some more recent complications.) But they aren't the only foreign marque with manufacturing operations in the U.S., and this month Volvo offered some hints as to what we can expect from their facility in Ridgeville, South Carolina.
And so, in a desperate attempt to cut through the red tape, new-ish Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan on Friday conceded 10 percent of his company, about 433 million shares, to Uncle Sam in exchange for $8.9 billion of funding held hostage by the current administration. Remember, Intel has already spent tens of billions of dollars on fabs with the understanding its investments in US manufacturing would be rewarded.
Foxconn's failure to establish large-scale electric vehicle production at the former GM factory in Ohio has led to the sale of the facility to Crescent Dune LLC, a new business partner.
A pickup in the pace of innovation—potentially from recent advances in robotics and generative AI—remains the catalyst most likely to reverse long-run stagnation in manufacturing productivity.
Roche's $50 billion investment in US manufacturing aims to create over 12,000 jobs and counter potential tariffs, marking a significant commitment to innovation and growth.
