GlobalFoundries breaks ground on $10bn chip plant in New York
New York state is contributing $570m to the $12.3bn first phase at Malta, part of a US-Japan plan to invest up to $21bn at the Saratoga County site.
Ground was broken on 13 November for a $10 billion GlobalFoundries semiconductor factory in Malta, in Saratoga County, New York, the first phase of a US-Japan plan to invest up to $21 billion at the site, according to Governor Kathy Hochul's office.
The plant is meant to add capacity for chips used in cars, artificial intelligence and aerospace, sectors where Washington is trying to move production onshore. GlobalFoundries and the state put the wider expansion at $12.3 billion across the Luther Forest Technology Campus, covering the new factory as well as upgrades to the company's existing plants and a new Advanced Packaging and Photonics Center.
The company said the project would create more than 1,100 manufacturing jobs, along with what the state described as thousands of construction and supplier jobs in the Capital Region.
New York is contributing $570 million: $535 million in performance-based Green CHIPS tax credits and $35 million in grants for workforce training and public infrastructure.
The new building, known as Fab 8.2, will have about 386,000 square feet of cleanroom space. GlobalFoundries also committed $60 million in community investment, childcare for employees at or beside the site, a project labor agreement covering construction, and a pledge to take on local suppliers and workers.
"Today, we're putting shovels in the ground and turning an ambitious partnership into reality," Tim Breen, the company's chief executive, said in a statement issued by the governor's office. He said the work would expand "trusted semiconductor manufacturing at a scale that matters." Hochul said the expansion would help ensure that "the chips powering our economy are made right here in New York."
Senator Charles Schumer said he had pushed for the federal incentives, and that GlobalFoundries had told him it would build a second fab in Malta if Congress created them. The governor's office said Hochul has overseen $136 billion in semiconductor investment since taking office, including Micron's $100 billion project in central New York, and cited an industry forecast that one in four chips made in the United States within a decade will come from upstate New York.
The announcement did not name the Japanese partners in the $21 billion initiative, say how the cost would be shared between the two countries, or give a date for the plant to start production.
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