The department is finalising US$35.5 million to BAE to quadruple production in New Hampshire for key semiconductor chips used in F-35 fighter jets and commercial satellites.
“The investment will cut the company’s planned modernisation timeline in half,” Commerce said.
The Pentagon plans to spend US$1.7 trillion on the F-35 programme including buying 2,500 planes in the coming decades. The chips are critical to F-15s and F-35s.
The Commerce Department is also finalising US$23.9 million for Rocket Lab unit SolAero Technologies Corp, which the government said would boost the company’s production of solar cells by 50% over the next three years.
Rocket Lab, founded in 2006 by New Zealander Peter Beck, is one of two US firms specialising in the production of highly efficient, radiation-resistant compound semiconductors called space-grade solar cells.
The company’s solar cells support US space programmes, including missile awareness systems, the James Webb Space Telescope, Nasa’s Artemis lunar explorations, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, and Mars Insight Lander.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told Reuters this month the department is racing to complete as many agreements as possible under the Biden administration’s US$52.7 billion “Chips and Science” programme before President-elect Donald Trump, who criticised the programme, takes office on Jan 20.
Commerce earlier this month finalised its first major award – a US$6.6 billion subsidy for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s US unit.
Last week, Commerce finalised a US$1.5 billion subsidy for GlobalFoundries to expand semiconductor production in Malta, New York and Vermont.