Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul and Netherlands Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Liesje Schreinemacher announced a new partnership to strengthen innovation and collaboration in the semiconductor industry between the Netherlands and New York State during the royal visit by Their Majesties King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. The partnership, formalized in a memorandum of understanding signed today by Governor Hochul and Minister Schreinemacher recognizes the entities’ shared interest in promoting sustainability within the semiconductor industry, enhancing joint workforce development opportunities, and advancing semiconductor research and development. As part of this new partnership, the Governor also announced a new state program to sponsor up to five SUNY students’ attendance at the prestigious Eindhoven Semiconductor Summer School program this summer in the Netherlands.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good afternoon. This has been a spectacular day. We are so proud to host the Royal Majesties, and they have been just incredible representatives of their beloved country. We're delighted to have you here and look forward to deepening our relationship.

Also, Dave, we've had many great announcements here. Every time I walk in the door, he thinks it's another billion dollars. I've got to stop that. I just can't do a billion every time I see— but we're pretty close, right? It is absolutely an honor to be here, and also, I'm so proud to show off this facility. This is something that we're enormously proud of, and I want to thank you and all of our partners, our Dutch companies, who are synonymous with this facility, and one of the reasons why we've invested so much money.

And I want to thank the individuals. I want to thank Dave first of all, I also want to acknowledge Hope Knight, who's the President and CEO of Empire State Development, who really funds many of these products, has the vision for it. But also my partner in government our Lieutenant Governor, former member of Congress – someone was asking what you used to do. He's a member of Congress, but we gave him a get out of— I won't say that we look forward to continuing work with Antonio Delgado, let's give him a round of applause as well.

Beyond our cultural ties, New York and the Netherlands are both committed to leading on semiconductors. Full stop. This is our space. And these invisible chips power everything from the cell phone in your pocket, to the car in your driveway, to the refrigerator in your kitchen. And we believe— we have a deep-felt belief, that our countries - New York's not a country - our state and the Netherlands can really power the future and create a semiconductor renaissance that the rest of the world will follow. And in so doing, the governments must also incentivize innovation and aggressively pursue companies working at the vanguard of the semiconductor industry. That's exactly what we did not long ago here in the State of New York. That is the genius behind our $10 billion Green CHIPS initiative that we enacted with our State Legislature. That is the program that coupled with federal resources under the leadership of President Biden and Majority Leader Schumer, we're able to harness their resources with our $10 billion to be a magnet for companies from all over. And as a result, we landed Micron, the largest economic development deal in American history, just a short time ago. That's 50,000 jobs and many more opportunities coming right here to our beloved state. That deserves a round of applause.

We had a conversation a short time ago at a roundtable at the Governor's Residence. Great participation. We talked about the need also for talent. How do you build the talent pipeline? And so, we understand that government has a role in assisting companies meet those objectives. We've launched the Office of Strategic Workforce Development. We're investing tens of millions of dollars to prepare our state university system and our younger children from kindergarten on through grade 12. Prepare them for the high-tech jobs of the future, investing in STEM education.

We also have to look beyond the bounds of our state and our nation, even this continent, to build new partnerships and that's exactly what we're doing to take this to greater heights. Six months ago, we unveiled an historic $10 billion partnership that will establish New York CREATES Albany Nanotech as one of the most advanced semiconductor research and development facilities in North America.

And what was the key to that? A Dutch company helped us make that happen. See, Albany Nanotech will soon be home to one of the rarest and most sophisticated chips making tools on the planet. We love doing things like that. We'll actually be the first publicly owned research center in the world, and that's second to no one. There's only one business that makes this incredible product. A Netherlands based lithography company called ASML. I've been here many times. I've met the leadership; I've met people from this company. ASML is extraordinary. Their next generation machine, which is the size of a bus, and costs hundreds of million dollars, will be the centerpiece of a new state of the art lab that we'll build right next door.

It's already underway, right, Dave? The dirt's been dug a little bit? Okay, we're moving ahead. I need to see some movement there, that's great. In this lab, the industry giants who operate in New York - Micron, IBM, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron, they'll be able to harness the most advanced chip making equipment ever made. They'll use it to design chips that are even smaller and more powerful than those currently on the market, supercharging the electronics of the future. None of this would be possible without the global semiconductor ecosystem that New York CREATES has intentionally worked to foster. And that's what we're building on today.

In a few moments, I'll sign an MOU with our Minister that cements the partnership between New York and the Netherlands, two of the world's preeminent semiconductor ecosystems, that allow for free-flowing exchange of ideas and best practices as we work together to move this industry forward. This is something that the delegations have been discussing at our Semicon Forum, and the questions arise, how do we make even smaller, faster chips? We always want to be the best. How do we build the best workforce to power this industry for the next 50 years? And how do we build a chip economy that prioritizes sustainability?

These are some of the issues we'll tackle together. This partnership also unlocks exciting opportunities for academic collaboration between New York and Dutch universities, and it starts this summer. When fives State University of New York students will head to the Netherlands for an intensive summer program on semiconductors and photonics.

So, we don't have to say it, but we know it: New York became what it is because of the Dutch. Their willingness to explore new worlds, to go into the unknown. It is that risk taking gene that has been passed on to all the people who claim Dutch heritage today. That is what drives you. We have that same sense here in the State of New York. This is a state of unlimited possibilities and exceptionalism. But it all started 400 years ago, when someone with tremendous courage and a willingness to go into the unknown and chart new waters – to come up what is now called the Hudson River and to make New York State the powerhouse that it is.

So, we don't forget that. From Dutch-origin city names like Brooklyn and Rensselaer, to our beloved New York Knicks. Got very far this year. It was a good year. They got their name from early Dutch pants worn by Dutch settlers. And one of our founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, married a Dutch American socialite, Elizabeth Schuyler, just a few minutes from where we stand today.

But we're proving today that this bond is not just talking about the past, it's not just history, it's also about where we're going together into the future. It's about groundbreaking work happening right here, right now, that will change the way we live for the next 400 years. And solidifying a partnership that'll set the stage for generations of innovation and position New York and the Netherlands, as I said, as global leaders.

So, I'm honored to introduce our next speaker, someone who's been so instrumental in forming this new partnership between two governments, the Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Liesje Schreinemacher. Right? Schreinemacher? Got it. There we go. Minister, welcome to the podium.