Former AMD boss Hector Ruiz has emerged from the shadows as a force lobbying the Democrat administration to build the computer chip factory in Saratoga County, New York.

State ethics and lobbying disclosures show that Ruiz and his firm, Advanced Nanotechnology Solutions Inc hired the Syracuse law firm Hiscock & Barclay in April 2012, paying the firm $89,094 in 2012 and $9,005 in 2013. According to the Albany Times Union New York State governor Andrew Cuomo announced the creation of Nano Utica on Oct. 10, 2013 at the SUNY IT campus outside of Utica, a $1.5 billion computer chip research and development program that is expected to generate 1,000 new jobs.

The NanoCollege in Albany has since received approval to merge with SUNY IT, and the NanoCollege owns a 400-acre site next to the SUNY-IT campus that the state has set aside for computer chip manufacturing. Ruiz was the major corporate backer of the Nano Utica consortium, which will focus on computer chip “packaging” technologies such as 3D chip stacking and other new ways to make different chips work better together in devices.

It is nice to note that he is still about.