Capital Region Tech R&D Employment Continues to Increase
A 300-millimeter quantum wafer. Courtesy IBM.
Highlights:
- Tech R&D jobs reached record high in 2025.
- Albany County had state’s third largest annual gain in tech R&D jobs.
- Schenectady County’s tech R&D employment surpassed its pre-COVID level.
- Major R&D investments in the region were announced by IBM, GlobalFoundries and others.
The Capital Region’s tech R&D services industry saw its employment climb to a record high in 2025, and it is projected to go higher amid quantum manufacturing, clean energy, and other research expansion initiatives.
In 2025, employment in the eight-county region’s Physical/Engineering/Biological Research industry totaled 7,761. That represented a 2 percent employment increase from the previous year and the most on record, with data going back to 2000, according to a Center for Economic Growth (CEG) analysis of new annual data from the New York State Department of Labor’s Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). This growth reinforces the region’s position as one of New York State’s fastest-advancing tech hubs.
Driving that growth was Albany County, which saw its tech R&D services industry employment increase over the year by 122. That was the state’s third largest annual increase in tech R&D jobs, following Westchester (+229) and New York (+383) counties. Schenectady County also had a 43-job annual gain in this industry – the fifth largest in the state. That pushed Schenectady County’s tech R&D services employment to 3,749, which meant those jobs, surpassing its pre-COVID (2019) level.
Counties throughout the Capital Region have seen several major R&D initiatives in recent months, including:
May 2026: IBM announced it will create a new company, Anderon, for the development of the nation’s first pure-play quantum foundry at NY Creates’ Albany NanoTech Complex, with $1 billion in federal funding plus $1 billion in private investment.
May 2026: GlobalFoundries announced Quantum Technology Solutions, a new venture focused on scaling U.S. quantum manufacturing, supported by $375 million in federal funding.
May 2026: IBM and Lam Research announced the continuation of their collaboration at the Albany NanoTech Complex, with a focus on developing “new processes and materials to support sub-1nm logic scaling.”
May 2026: Applied Materials selected RPI as an inaugural research partner for the company’s Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization (EPIC) Center in Silicon Valley.
April 2026: NY Creates began installing Tokyo Electron’s leading-edge 300mm wafer coater/developer system at Albany NanoTech.
April 2026: NORDTECH announced $7 million for continued R&D on nitride RF next-generation technology involving RPI, Crystal IS in Green Island, and other partners, plus $4 million for continued R&D on heterogeneous quantum networking involving AIM Photonics, NY Creates, and other partners.
December 2025: SCREEN Holdings established the SCREEN Advanced Technology Center of America at the Albany NanoTech Complex to R&D in thermal processing and advanced packaging.
November 2025: GE Vernova previewed its expanded Advanced Research Center in Niskayuna, a $105 million upgrade, supporting carbon capture, wind turbine manufacturing, and AI-enabled grid technology.
April 2025: Tokyo Electron and IBM renewed their agreement to collaborate on “development of a new laser debonding process for producing 300 mm silicon chip wafers for 3D chip stacking technology.”
CEG Initiatives
CEG has a long history of supporting the Capital Region’s semiconductor industry, from marketing the region and hosting events at SEMICON West to sponsoring several apprenticeship programs for GlobalFoundries and NY Creates to conducting a microelectronics workforce needs assessment for the Northeast Regional Defense Technology Hub (NORDTECH). CEG has also launched a Semiconductor Growth Access Program (SGAP) that aims to broaden the Capital Region’s semiconductor supply chain by providing targeted businesses with funding for legal, financial, business planning, and technical accounting assistance.
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