IBM inks 5-year alliance

Computer giant International Business Machines Corp and Applied Materials Inc said they will form a five-year, US$300 million partnership to develop new microchip technologies.

The initiative will bring about 80 researchers to Albany Nanotech, a State University of New York affiliated center for nanotechnology research and development funded by the state and private sector.

Santa Clara, California-based Applied Materials, the world's largest supplier of equipment used to make and test microchips, and IBM will work to develop chips that can be used in biotechnology and medicine, said State University at Albany President Kermit Hall.

Potential applications include blood testing, DNA sequencing and drug development and delivery. The technology may also be used in telecommunications, artificial intelligence software and sensors for environmental, energy and defense applications, officials said.

Nanotechnology is the science of working at the atomic and molecular levels -- at scales, for example, that are about 1/100,000th the diameter of a human hair.

The state, in an effort to transform an area dependent on government bureaucracy and rust-belt industry into another Silicon Valley, has invested hundreds of millions already in the Albany Nanotech campus.

The project is the second such collaborative effort at Albany Nanotech.

In July, Armonk-based IBM, New York state and three of the world's largest computer chip makers agreed to spend US$600 million over the next five years on a research, education and economic development project here focused on creating the next generation of computer microchips.

Sematech, a consortium of nine of the world's largest computer chip makers, is also building a US$400 million research center here, and Tokyo Electron Ltd, the world's second-largest maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, built a US$300 million facility next door.

"We're creating this high-end facility where private corporations can send researchers to undertake work that they would not otherwise be able to do," Hall said.