SAN JOSE — Tech and telecommunications titan Nokia plans to establish a big manufacturing center in San Jose, a production hub that could create hundreds of new jobs.
Nokia plans to establish a photonic semiconductor manufacturing center at 6373 San Ignacio Road, according to information released by the offices of San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and Rep. Jimmy Panetta.
Bird’s-eye view of 6373 San Ignacio Avenue, a tech research and office building in south San Jose. (Google Maps)
The tech fab is being funded in part through federal incentives secured by Rep. Panetta, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Santa Clara County, Santa Cruz County, Monterey County and San Luis Obispo County.
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The arrival of the new tech complex offers a hopeful counterpart to what has been a forbidding start to 2025 for the tech industry in the Bay Area.
During the first two months of 2025, Bay Area employers slashed a net total of 8,700 positions, according to seasonally adjusted estimates that Beacon Economics derived from the state Employment Development Department’s official labor reports.
The tech industry’s employment struggles may have weighed down the overall Bay Area job market as 2025 got underway.
During the first two months of 2025, the Bay Area lost a net total of 9,900 jobs, including nonfarm payroll job losses in both January and February, the EDD reports show.
Nokia is setting up its new photonic chip production hub within a south San Jose building that totals 82,100 square feet, according to the LoopNet commercial property listing database.
At one point, the site was occupied by Infinera, a producer and supplier of equipment and systems for optical networks.
In February 2025, Finland-based Nokia completed a $2.3 billion purchase of San Jose-based Infinera. As a result of the deal, Infinera joined the Nokia optical networks business.
Nokia said the deal created an “innovation powerhouse” that will be able to capitalize on opportunities in the emerging artificial intelligence field.
“This transaction will significantly improve our scale and profitability in optical networks, and allows us to speed up the pace of innovation to meet the requirements of the AI era,” Pekka Lundmark, Nokia’s chief executive officer, said at the time of the acquisition of Infinera.
In addition to the prospect of up to 200 permanent tech jobs at the Nokia hub in south San Jose, the creation of the photonic semiconductors fabrication complex should also fuel hundreds of construction jobs, according to Mayor Mahan and Rep. Panetta.
“The photonic integrated circuit technology from this semiconductor manufacturing facility powers global data networks and AI infrastructure, reinforcing San Jose’s role as the Capital of Silicon Valley,” the release by Mahan and Panetta stated.
