Air Liquide plans $250 million plant to supply gas for chipmaker Micron

(Reuters) -  Air Liquide will invest $250 million on a new industrial gas plant in Idaho to supply U.S. chipmaker Micron Technology with ultra-pure nitrogen and other gases.

Semiconductor companies have been boosting production capacity on expected growing demand for chips used in virtually all electronics. 

"This investment will support the production of leading-edge memory chips, notably to meet the growing demand for computing capacities required by artificial intelligence," said Matthieu Giard, Air Liquide’s CEO for the Americas. 

Micron this year started mass production of its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) semiconductors for use in Nvidia’s latest chip for artificial intelligence.

The planned Air Liquide plant is expected to be operational by the end of 2025, the company said, adding that the investment will create hundreds of direct and indirect jobs.

(Reporting by Olivier Sorgho and Gianluca Lo Nostro; Editing by David Goodman)