General Electric Co (GE) chief executive Jeff Immelt is pledging to spend US$50 million on a series of initiatives in Boston, including US$25 million on government schools, as his company prepares to move its headquarters to the city.
The announcement came as Immelt joined Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh on Monday to unveil more details about the company’s decision to move its headquarters from Fairfield, Connecticut.
GE is to occupy two buildings and build a third in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood.
Photo: AP
Immelt said the move would create about 4,000 temporary and permanent jobs.
Immelt said the company plans to move into temporary offices in August and ultimately bring 800 new workers to the area.
He predicted the move would inject more than US$1 billion into the local economy.
Photo: AP
Immelt said the company was drawn to Boston because of its determination not to lose out to Silicon Valley on the growth of the “industrial Internet.”
“The other thing I like about Boston is that you have a chip on your shoulder,” Immelt said. “I love that.”
Baker said GE and Massachusetts are a good match.
He said that 40 percent of workers in the state are part of the “innovation economy.”
Baker predicted that other companies would relocate to the Boston area in part because GE is doing so.
As part of the US$50 million package unveiled on Monday, Immelt said GE would fund a career laboratory to help prepare students for jobs using advanced manufacturing technology.
The company would also spend US$15 million on community health centers and US$10 million to expand diversity in the healthcare, science and technology fields.
Protesters gathered outside the press conference to highlight the millions of US dollars in tax breaks and public incentives, including the prospect of free rent on city-owned land, used to lure the company to Boston.
Susan Strelec, a 70-year-old protester from the city’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, braved snow, wind and icy sidewalks in front of the high-rise office building where the press conference was being held to voice her concerns.
Strelec said the city and state should be more focused on improving schools, shelters for homeless people and fixing public transportation rather than offering sweet deals to big corporations.
“I hate injustice. I hate corporate greed. I hate stupidity,” said Strelec, a member of the Massachusetts Alliance of HUD Tenants, one of the groups protesting the agreement.
Walsh defended the deal, saying it would end up generating more tax revenue by renovating the two warehouses on city-owned land, rather than letting them remain as they are for the next 10 to 15 years.
Walsh also pointed to the US$25 million pledge to Boston schools by GE, which he said was a direct result of the deal.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day