It is expected that the PHotonics semiconductor plant in San José-A in San José will begin the initial operations at some point in 2026, potentially creating sinks or well-paid jobs.
The future Nokia plant is about to sprout in an office and research building in southern San José, where the recently acquired subsidiary of Nokia, the infinera technology company, now operates.
The mayor of San José, Matt Mahan, and the American representative Jimmy Panetta, whose district includes part of the largest city in the Bay area, suggested that the new plant could stimulate hiring and economic activity.
The two politicians appeared in an event on April 11 to promote the new factory, located in 6373 San Ignacio Avenue in the largest city in the Bay area.
“San José is a city that does things,” said Mayor Mahan. “There is no city of our size with a most of the workforce in the manufacture that San José.”
The new manufacturing center is of importance that goes beyond the chips of the size of ten cents based on laser that will produce the plant, in the opinion of the representative Panetta.
“What I see, when I go through this building, is that it is not just innovation and manufacturing,” Panetta said. “These are investments in our future, the future of Nokia, the future of Silicon Valley, the future of working families here in San José.”
The new plant will help feed that future from next year.
“The test team at the beginning of 2026,” said Brett Hooper, a Nokia Human Resources Executive. “Complete operations are scheduled for 2027”.
The representative Panetta, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Santa Clara County, Santa Cruz County, Monterey County and San Luis Obispo County, said federal incentives to help finance the Technological Production Center.
“This new FAB will have a production of turbo semiconductors,” said Mahan.
The new optical chip production center will be on the ground floor of an existing research building. The construction of Vulcan is building the plant, which has turned out to be an intricate effort.
“We saw how complicated this building is,” said representative Panetta. “It was incredible how (Vulcana construction) was able to assemble this in such a small space. As one of the people told me, it is like having a size of 10 feet and but being pushed to a shoe of size 8. This is how difficult this is.”
The lower floor will house the manufacturing center and the second floor will contain office spaces. The manufacturing workers are scheduled to move to the San José site from an existing infinity operation in Sunnyvale.
In 2019, Infina transferred its headquarters to San José from Sunnyvale, transferring office workers in the process. Infinera maintained manufacturing activities in Sunnyvale at that time.
Nokia, based in Finland, bought Infinera in February 2025 in a purchase of $ 2.3 billion or San José -based infinera. As a result of the agreement, Infina joined the business of Nokia’s optical networks.
Nokia said the agreement created an “innovation power” that may capitalize on the opportunities in the emerging field of artificial intelligence.
Becoming the new plant comes at a time when job losses have mistreated the technology industry of the Bay area to begin 2025.
Around the first two months of 2025, employers in the Bay area cut a total of 8,700 technological jobs, chordination to estimates adjusted by the season that Beacon Economics derived from the official labor reports of the State Employment Development Department.
The impulse of the technological industry towards the Jettison workers may have weighed in the general labor market of the Bay area as 2025 was launched.
Duration January and February 2025, the Bay area lost 9,900 non -agricultural payroll jobs. January and February, each brought job losses to the region, according to EDD reports.
“We are going to continue investing not only in physical infrastructure, but also in people, in workers who make us competitive in a wide range of advanced and precision manufacturing industries that are already here,” said Mahan.
The largest city in the Bay area expects to attract even more avant -garde manufacturing facilities, according to the mayor.
“San José is open for business,” said Mahan.
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