Albany

Just days after saying it "has never had" any involvement in Gov. Andrew Cuomo's $1.5 billion Nano Utica project, Lam Research, a prominent semiconductor industry supplier based in Fremont, Calif., now says it is fully committed to the program.

For the past year, the Cuomo administration has been touting a consortium of five companies, including Lam Research, that it said agreed to fund the operations of Nano Utica, a $1.5 billion computer chip research consortium announced in October 2013 at the Utica campus of SUNY Institute of Technology.

A Lam Research spokesman went out of his way last week to explain how the company's involvement in projects in Albany had been "misconstrued" to also include its participation in the Utica lab.

Both are creations the SUNY College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in Albany, which has merged with SUNY IT to create one school called SUNY Polytechnic Institute with campuses both in the Capital Region and in Utica.

But on Monday, Lam Research changed course and told the Times Union that, in fact, it was and always has been involved in the Nano Utica program.

"We just gave you the wrong information," Kyra Whitten, Lam Research's vice president of corporate communications told the Times Union late Monday. "In this case, we made a mistake."

At around the same time, SUNY Poly issued a statement on behalf of the company that said it "has been and remains committed" to Nano Utica, which will focus on new ways to connect different types of interacting chips inside electronic devices to improve performance.

"Lam Research looks forward to supplying the consortium with its state-of-the-art tools and equipment and provide any and all support on the ground in Utica to advance the mission and objectives of the consortium," the statement said.

SUNY Poly officials didn't respond to several attempts by the Times Union to ask questions about Lam Research's initial remarks and its subsequent about-face.

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Lam Research does 180 on Nano Utica comments