June 5 (Reuters) - Air Liquide will invest

$250 million on a new industrial gas plant in Idaho to supply

U.S. chipmaker Micron Technology ( MU ) with ultra-pure nitrogen

and other gases.

Semiconductor companies have been boosting production

capacity on expected growing demand for chips used in virtually

all electronics.

"This investment will support the production of leading-edge

memory chips, notably to meet the growing demand for computing

capacities required by artificial intelligence," said Matthieu

Giard, Air Liquide's CEO for the Americas.

Micron this year started mass production of its

high-bandwidth memory (HBM) semiconductors for use in Nvidia's ( NVDA )

latest chip for artificial intelligence.

The planned Air Liquide plant is expected to be operational

by the end of 2025, the company said, adding that the investment

will create hundreds of direct and indirect jobs.