Micron Technology’s plans to invest $40 billion in U.S. chip manufacturing could signal acceleration of similar projects that increase industrial property demand, as newly enacted legislation promotes more domestic production of vital semiconductors.

Boise, Idaho-based Micron, among the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers, said the investment would play out through the end of the decade, with plans to boost its memory chip manufacturing in multiple phases as it creates an estimated 40,000 new jobs. Officials at Micron, which occupies several Boise buildings and over the past year established design and manufacturing operations in Georgia and Virginia, said the company will be sharing locations and other specific expansion plans in coming weeks.

The Micron announcement came the same day that President Biden signed the recently passed CHIPS and Science Act aimed at boosting domestic production of memory and other semiconductor components. Those are currently produced primarily in Asia, where pandemic-fueled logjams in the supply chain have caused global production delays for automakers and other manufacturers.

“This legislation will enable Micron to grow domestic production of memory from less than 2% to up to 10% of the global market in the next decade, making the U.S. home to the most advanced memory manufacturing and R&D in the world,” Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said in a statement.

The CHIPS law was passed last month by Congress and authorizes more than $200 billion in federal spending to spur domestic production. Passage could mean more projects coming from other manufacturers in key technology hubs such as Austin, Texas, and other places well beyond California’s Silicon Valley, the birthplace of computer chips.

At least one other project appears to have been given a boost by the program. Santa Clara, California-based chip giant Intel earlier this year announced $20 billion plans to build two semiconductor plants near Columbus, Ohio. That spending could increase to as much as $100 billion in the state with the passage of the CHIPS Act, its CEO said.

A prominent retail trade group predicts imports at the nation’s major container ports will slow in the second half of 2022 after setting records in the spring, though volume for the full year is still expected to surpass 2021 levels as the supply chain gradually rebounds from pandemic disruptions.

“Retail sales are still growing, but the economy is slowing down and that is reflected in cargo imports,” Jonathan Gold, vice president for supply chain and customs policy for the National Retail Federation, said in a statement Monday. “Lower volumes may help ease congestion at some ports, but others are still seeing backups and global supply chain challenges are far from over.”

The group representing a variety of industry stakeholders said many retailers brought in merchandise well ahead of the holiday season or shifted deliveries to East and Gulf coast ports to avoid potential disruptions on the West Coast, as talks continue between port officials and dockworker unions after the latest labor contract expired July 1. There were also scattered protests near ports by independent truck drivers over California law changes requiring some truckers to be classified as employees instead of contractors.

“The heady days of growth in imports are quickly receding,” Ben Hackett, founder of maritime consulting firm Hackett Associates, said in the NRF statement. “The outlook is for a decline in volumes compared with 2021 over the next few months, and the decline is expected to deepen in 2023.”

The prediction follows a fairly strong first half of 2022, as U.S. ports handled 13.5 million TEUS, or 20-foot equivalent units, up 5.5% from the same period of 2021, according to the trade group’s Global Port Tracker. Those ports handled 2.25 million TEUs in June, the latest month with available data, down 5.9% from May’s record 2.4 million but still 4.9% higher than the June 2021 figure.

Office use decreased by less than a half-percent from the prior week, dropping to 43.6% for the week ending Aug. 3, according to security technology firm Kastle Systems.

The company’s 10-city "Back to Work Barometer," based on anonymous keycard data from clients’ properties, showed 8 of 10 cities posted similar small declines for the week, with only Los Angeles and Dallas reporting increases of approximately 1 percentage point.

Researchers at Falls Church, Virginia-based Kastle Systems said this marks four months that the national barometer has hovered around 44% of pre-pandemic attendance. That represents a pandemic peak for the national number, with no cities reaching 50% except for long-standing weekly leaders: the Texas cities of Austin, Houston and Dallas.