The $600 million initiative includes $110 million in federal funding, $250 million from New York state, and the rest from private companies.

"AIM Photonics is going to act as a central hub and will give Rochester photonics businesses the space and the capacity they need to generate the next generation breakthroughs and secure American leadership in the manufacturing of integrated photonics," Biden said.

Initial projects, Liehr said, could include developing new computer chips to allow for retrofitting the nation's data centers, huge computer server facilities, with fiber optic cables. Data centers today use more energy than all of New York state, Biden said during his remarks Monday.

Sounds like government funded competition to me. I realize POET/OPEL was also gov. funded, but not to the tune of these big dollars.

Perhaps they've heard of POET and want to get a start on their own development, but wouldn't their people in the military already know the secrets?