Former President Bill Clinton joined Governor Cuomo on Tuesday at an economic development conference to discuss the importance behind technology investments to boost the state's current job market.
Clinton was the keynote speaker at The New York Open for Business Statewide Conference in Albany, where it was announced that tech giants IBM, Intel, Global Foundries, TSMC and Samsung would invest $4 billion into New York computer chip research.
IBM pledged a majority with $3.6 billion, and said they would hire 950 employees to work at their Yorktown Heights research headquarters.
According to the governor's office, the plan would create 2,500 high-technology jobs and 1,900 construction jobs, while also preserving 2,500 current positions.
The former president showed support for Cuomo, who served as Clinton's housing secretary during his second term by explaining that in order to build a strong economy, effective government led by the right people was crucial and said that Cuomo "asks the right questions."
Clinton went further to praise the confidence people outside New York had in the Empire State:
I travel all over America and all over the world, and the confidence people have in New York outside this state has exploded just because the government did its job. They showed up, passed the budget on time, didn’t raise taxes — it’s an amazing, amazing thing for you.
Cuomo's technology fused job strategy coincides with Mayor Bloomberg's push to transform New York City into its own tech bubble. The mayor recently announced the city would provide $100 million in infrastructure development to the university that presented the best plan that could build a world class science program.
Stanford, University of Chicago, Cornell, and many other universities have expressed interest in helping Bloomberg take on Silicon Valley.