The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration today awarded $504 million in grants to 12 regional Tech Hubs across the country, but Spokane’s Tech Hub for developing advanced aerospace materials missed out.
Leaders of the Inland Northwest Tech Hub said they’d keep looking for ways to implement their ambitious plans — and the Department of Commerce is planning a field trip to help them fine-tune their strategy.
“No region is better equipped than ours to meet the unprecedented global demand for equipping 40,000 new airplanes with lightweight aerospace parts that reduce carbon emissions. Within a few years, the Inland Northwest Tech Hub can have prototypes ready for high-rate production, enabling thousands of new domestic manufacturing jobs to lessen our growing reliance on foreign technology and foreign labor,” the consortium said in an emailed statement.
“Missing this opportunity will increase our reliance on foreign labor, threatening our national and economic security,” the consortium said. “We will be working on every possible opportunity to make new American jobs and supply chains a reality.”
The Spokane-based American Aerospace Materials Manufacturing Center is one of 31 consortiums that won Tech Hub designation last October as part of the Biden administration’s effort to fire up engines of innovation in places that are typically off the beaten tech track.
“Every American deserves the opportunity to thrive, no matter where they live,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in today’s announcement of the Phase 2 Tech Hub grants. She said the federal funding “will ensure that the benefits of the industries of the future – from artificial intelligence and clean energy, to biotechnology and more – are shared with communities that have been overlooked for far too long, including rural, tribal, industrial and disadvantaged communities.”
