Plans for Ruston microchip plant unveiled

A collaboration four years in the making came to fruition Monday as Radiance Technologies, a major defense contractor, announced plans to construct an $80 million secure microchip packaging facility in Ruston, in partnership with Louisiana Tech University, Louisiana Economic Development and the Louisiana Tech Foundation.

Expected to be completed in 2027 on land provided by the city of Ruston north of the sports complex, the 40,000 square-foot facility will be the beginning of what Radiance announced would be a $370 million investment in expanding its research and development footprint in north Louisiana.

The facility is expected to create 150 new direct jobs with an average annual salary of $85,000. LED estimates the project will additionally create 146 indirect new jobs, according to a release.

Gov. Jeff Landry was on hand for the announcement on Tech campus Monday morning and pointed to the Radiance development as a sign that the U.S. and Louisiana are returning to the cutting edge.

“America was always the country which everyone else looked to for some of the greatest innovations of our age,” Landry said. “Over the next decade or so, doing the things (Radiance) is doing here, we are showing the world again and again that America can lead, and guess what? We now get to lead out of Louisiana.”

Based out of Huntsville, Alabama, Radiance is a leading technology partner with the U.S. Department of Defense.

Radiance is a tenant company in Tech’s Enterprise Campus, having leased nearly the entire second floor of Tech Pointe II since the building’s opening in 2023. The R&D company makes use of Tech’s faculty expertise and student talent pipeline.

Officials pointed to the Radiance development, along with the in-progress data center being built in Richland Parish by Facebook parent company Meta, as making the I-20 corridor a new hub for economic development and technology.

“This is going to be a fundamental change to the economy of north Louisiana,” Tech President Jim Henderson said.

Ruston Mayor Ronny Walker said the new microchip facility will be built on what is to become a 37-acre Secure Business Park on land the city owns north of the Ruston Sports Complex. The city will donate land for each development as needed to the Louisiana Tech Foundation, a fundraising arm of the university.

Walker said the first inkling for the eventual partnership came when he and lobbyist Adam Terry spontaneously called Radiance CEO Bill Bailey while on a trip to Washington, D.C. four years ago.

“We were on the streets walking, and I looked at Adam and said, ‘Adam, they’re doing a bunch of chip plants, we need to get some of that,’” Walker said. “Adam pulls his phone out, punches in a number, and says, ‘Bill, you need to talk to Ronny.’”

On the state side, LED is providing $20 million in matching funds through a performance-based grant to the university foundation to acquire equipment for the new facility, as well as $17 million to Tech to upgrade research equipment and create specialized training programs in secure chip manufacturing.

“I’ve been involved in a lot of public/private partnerships, and this is the best one I’ve ever been a part of, and also the most comprehensive one,” Bailey said.

Multiple officials, including 5th District Congresswoman Julia Letlow, who was in attendance at Monday’s announcement, referenced a “brain drain” of talent leaving the state and held up the Radiance development as a key piece of reversing that trend.

“When you bring companies like Radiance in, and you have your students work for them and fall in love with a company like Radiance, then guess what?” Letlow said. “They stay here, and they marry here, and they raise families here and become productive citizens in the state of Louisiana.”

Construction is expected to begin in spring 2026 with an expected completion in summer 2027.