Call it the corporate version of the American recovery act: Intel spearheads $3.5B cleantech investment initiative

I guess someone still has money to spend: Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini has outlined a new $3.5 billion investment fund called the Invest in America Alliance (how can you argue with that name?) His proposition is that the business world needs to carry its share of the investment the United States needs to renew its position in innovation.

Otellini outlined the new effort in a speech called "Rebuilding the Foundations of American Growth," which he gave at The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Intel has provided a transcript of the speech along with other press materials here.

Here's the skinny.

Intel Capital (which is Intel's investment fund) along with 24 venture capital firms have pledged to commit $3.5 billion in investments into U.S.-based technology companies over the next two years. The investments will notably be targeted at innovation in clean technology and biotechnology. Areas specifically mentioned include: molecular diagnostics, bioinformatics, electric vehicle ecosystem and wireless infrastructure. Intel alone has created a $200 million Intel Capital Invest in America Technology Fun.

Here's the list of participating venture capitalists: Advanced Technology Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures, Bridgescale Partners, Canaan Partners, DCM, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Flywheel Ventures, Good Energies, Institutional Venture Partners, Investcorp Technology Partners, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Menlo Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, North Bridge Venture Partners, QuestMark Partners, Sevin Rosen Funds, Storm Ventures, Telesoft Partners, Updata Partners, U.S. Venture Partners, Venrock and Walden International.

Aside from all that moolah, Intel has convinced 17 high-profile high-tech companies and businesses to redouble their efforts to hire college graduates. Some have pledged to double the amount of recent graduates they recruit. Aside from Intel, the companies are Accenture, Adobe Systems, Autodesk, Broadcom, CDW, Cisco, Dell, eBay, Inc., EMC, GE, Google, HP, Liberty Mutual Group, Marvell Semiconductor, Microsoft and Yahoo!