Over 200 corporations are searching for funding by the CHIPS Act

More than 200 companies from a myriad of sectors have expressed interest in seeking funding through the CHIPS Act, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Friday, as part of what Raimondo described as a mandate “$50 billion in national security.” Americas” to invest.

The CHIPS Act was enacted in August 2022 and is part of a broader investment package aimed at catapulting US semiconductor manufacturing back to global dominance and reshaping the way companies decide where to spend their manufacturing budgets invest.

“Enough chips of the right variety throughout the supply chain in the United States,” Raimondo said as she described what she was looking for. The recipient companies are varied, but Raimondo told Cramer that some of the funds will go to “packaging companies, leading companies” in the US

There are important caveats that come with accepting federal aid, Raimondo said.

“It has to be spent in America,” the Secretary of Commerce told Cramer. Raimondo was particularly keen to highlight China.

“If you take our money, you can’t expand in China for top chips,” Raimondo said.

The ban on foreign investment is designed to prevent taxpayers’ money from subsidizing foreign economies, but the CHIPS Act as a whole has sparked controversy even among US allies. The European Union, for example, is already moving in with a smaller $47 billion package of semiconductors.

More than half of the potential applications cover the first tranche of the CHIPS Act funding, which includes mature node and high-end chip assets. The same potential applications span 35 states, according to a press release from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

CORRECTION: Following publication, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s office noted that while Raimondo had referred to prospects as “applications,” the companies in question had merely indicated an interest in applying.

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