Nanotronics to Open High-Tech Manufacturing Center in Historic Brooklyn Navy Yard
On Sept. 12, Nanotronics, a company that invented a platform that combines AI, automation, and imaging for industrial inspection, announced it will open a high-tech manufacturing center at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, creating 190 new jobs and investing $11 million.
The new facility will allow Nanotronics' artificial intelligence researchers, computer scientists, chemists and physicists to work directly with skilled machinists on the manufacturing floor, developing innovations that will lead partner industries to a smaller factory footprint, less waste and a faster route from R&D to production.
The new flagship manufacturing center will be located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard's historic Building 20, a 150-year-old former shipbuilding factory.
The Nanotronics groundbreaking comes as the Brooklyn Navy Yard undergoes a $1 billion expansion, its largest since WWII.
"New York City is rapidly becoming the international hub for innovation and technology, and it's not just happening in Manhattan," said Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul. "With New York State's support and record private investment, Brooklyn Navy Yard capitalized on its rich industrial history and has emerged as a national model for revitalizing manufacturing and green technology in the 21st century. "
The firm will be able to recruit top talent locally through New York institutions including the Navy Yard's Employment Center and STEAM Center, the City University of New York (CUNY), Cornell Tech, New York University and Columbia University. The hub's location in the Navy Yard also provides space for partner firms in the life sciences, semiconductor, aerospace, automobile, additive manufacturing and quantum computing sectors to grow alongside Nanotronics.
Additionally, Nanotronics is partnering with CUNY's Medgar Evers College to join the START-UP NY program, which fosters collaboration between innovative companies and universities across New York State. Through this program, Nanotronics' executives will work with faculty and students at Medgar Evers to mentor students, collaborate on research projects, host career service workshops, place students in meaningful paid internships and jobs, as well as develop teaching curriculums and programs in STEM and the humanities. Students will receive real-world business and technical experience in an emerging high-tech industry - preparing them for a wide variety of future careers, including at Nanotronics.
The current expansion of Brooklyn Yard will increase the Yard's job total to 20,000 from its current 10,000 by the end of 2021. It includes the recently completed renovation of Building 77 to provide space to vertically-integrated design and manufacturing companies and the ground-floor Food Manufacturing Market. Also, this Fall Admiral's Row, which will include a light manufacturing and creative office building will open. The development includes the Green Manufacturing Center, which houses New Lab.
Further development was recently announced with includes a $2.5 billion master plan to create 10,000 additional jobs housed in vertical manufacturing buildings, which would bring the total number of jobs at the Yard to 30,000 in the coming decades. The plan is centered around three underused development sites within the Yard and would include the ground-up development of vertical manufacturing space along with public realm and accessibility improvements. The plan also envisions a Navy Yard more integrated within the local community and improved wayfinding, lighting, and streetscapes to make the Yard more pedestrian and cyclist-friendly.
