GlobalFoundries will operate two new 300mm semiconductor fabs at its Malta, New York, campus backed by up to $21 billion in Japanese investment. The first fab gets about $10 billion and is supposed to break ground before the end of 2026.
The chipmaker announced its selection Oct. 14 under a U.S.-Japan investment program. Japan supplies the capital, and GlobalFoundries supplies the process technology and runs the plants. The release doesn’t say who will own the buildings.
Malta fab expansion by the numbers
Each fab is expected to add about 900,000 300mm wafers a year once fully ramped. For scale, the existing Malta campus made about 400,000 wafers a year when GlobalFoundries finalized a $1.5 billion CHIPS Act award in November 2024. That plan called for a new 358,000-square-foot fab and roughly tripling campus output over 10 years.
The new pair goes much further. Together they’d add about 1.8 million wafers a year, more than four times the 2024 baseline.
The company says the site is permitted and shovel-ready and will tie into existing Malta infrastructure. It expects the first fab online in 2029. It gave no date for the second, which would get roughly another $10 billion.
GlobalFoundries put the job count at about 27,000 construction and ecosystem positions, plus more than 1,000 permanent manufacturing jobs in the Capital Region. The first figure lumps trades in with supplier jobs, so don’t read it as a craft headcount.
Who builds the GlobalFoundries fabs
Nobody yet, publicly. The release names no general contractor, construction manager, design firm or tool-install partner, and the groundbreaking will be announced separately. With about 11 weeks left in 2026, a start this year leaves little room for a fresh procurement. If the first fab is the building planned under the 2024 award, early design may already be done. The company hasn’t said.
It’s a familiar pattern. Bayer’s Ohio pharma campus has Fluor on early design and no builder picked until 2027. On a chip fab, that gap matters more, because the electricians, pipefitters and ultra-pure piping crews a fab needs are the same ones every data center and chip job in the Northeast is chasing.
Apple, GM, Renesas, Tokyo Electron and Cirrus Logic all supplied supportive statements. None disclosed a volume commitment.
Side deals that touch the scope
Two other agreements came with the announcement. GlobalFoundries is shifting $955 million of its existing CHIPS award toward silicon photonics, silicon-germanium and advanced packaging at Malta and Burlington, Vermont. And the Commerce Department will take about a 4% equity stake in the company.
The reallocation matters to contractors already tracking the 2024 scope, because part of that money now goes to packaging and photonics lines instead of wafer capacity. Bid packages for the first fab are worth reading closely when they’re issued.
Twenty-one billion dollars with a 2029 online date is a real commitment. Until there’s a builder, a design team and a ground date, it’s a funding plan, not a construction schedule.