GlobalFoundries began as the factories AMD no longer wanted to own. In 2009 AMD spun off its chip plants, and an investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, Mubadala, took control. The new company made chips for anyone who designed them. When it went public in October 2021, a global chip shortage had idled car plants, and governments wanted factories outside China and Taiwan. GlobalFoundries called itself the only large contract chipmaker with a global footprint that was not based in China or Taiwan.

Stepping Off the Treadmill

Mubadala poured money into the company. It bought Chartered Semiconductor of Singapore in 2010 and IBM's chipmaking business in 2015. For years it raced Taiwan's TSMC to make the smallest, fastest chips. In August 2018 GlobalFoundries quit that race and halted work on its 7-nanometer process, citing the cost. The new bet was on specialized chips for cars, phones, radios, and power systems. Those chips did not need the newest, costliest factories.

Owned by Abu Dhabi

GlobalFoundries priced its shares at $47 on October 27, 2021, the top of its range, and raised about $2.6 billion. The stock slipped about 1 percent on its first day on Nasdaq. Mubadala kept about 82 percent of the company. In February 2024 the U.S. government announced a $1.5 billion CHIPS Act award for its plants. GlobalFoundries bought chip designer MIPS in 2025 and still trades on Nasdaq under GFS.

Cover: An Iron Forge, Richard Earlom. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for an iron forge (a foundry).