An American company is investing more than $200 million over five years to expand the research and development of technology like semiconductors in Ontario, the provincial government announced Monday.
Marvell Technology Inc. is putting $238 million into a five-year expansion of its Ontario business. The investment will go towards a new Toronto office and more semiconductor research and development in Ottawa and York Region. Marvell is also creating a new 8,000-square-foot optical lab in Ottawa. The company says this new money will lead to 350 new technology jobs.
“Ontario is proud to support Marvell Technology’s expansion, which will not only create hundreds of new, high-value jobs across our tech corridor, but reinforce the province’s leadership in the critical semiconductor industry,” said Vic Fideli, provincial Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.
Marvell is headquartered in Delaware. The company designs and sells semiconductor products, as well as other products having to do with artificial intelligence and cloud services. It currently does research and development in Canada and had 7,042 employees globally as of this past February. It had a net revenue of $5.5 billion in the 2024 fiscal year.
“Ontario offers a vast pool of professionals with expertise in the latest semiconductor and AI technologies, and we are delighted to bring new talent into the company to help extend our leadership position in next-gen, advanced AI data centre infrastructure solutions,” said Sandeep Bharathi, president of the Data Center Group at Marvell Technology Inc.
Artificial intelligence was an important part of the financial plans laid out in both the federal Canadian budget and Ontario’s Fall Economic Statement (FES) this year. The Carney budget proposed giving $1 billion over five years to expand artificial intelligence and quantum computing ecosystems.
In the Ontario mini-budget, the Ford government wrote that AI could help the province weather the impacts of the Trump administrations tariffs.
“In the longer term, investment in, and the application of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, could create opportunities for improved productivity and economic growth,” said the FES.
A 2024 report from Microsoft Canada said that the use of generative AI could add $187 billion annually to the Canadian economy by 2030 and help respond to our country’s productivity crisis.
A November report from the province’s Financial Accountability Office found that, although Ontario may avoid a recession in 2025’s third fiscal quarter, economic trends and the impacts of the U.S. trade war have led to a reduction in the crucial manufacturing industry and a high long-term unemployment rate.