American chip manufacturer GlobalFoundries (GFS.US) announced Tuesday that it has finalized an agreement with the US Commerce Department's CHIPS Act R&D office, securing $375 million in research funding to accelerate the growth trajectory of its Quantum Technology Solutions (QTS) business. This initiative is designed to help scale domestic quantum computing-based semiconductor manufacturing in the US and cement the nation's position at the forefront of the global "next-generation computing revolution"—namely, absolute leadership in quantum computing technology.
Nearly simultaneously, three major domestic quantum computing newcomers—Rigetti Computing (RGTI.US), whose shares surged nearly 10% in early trading, D-Wave Quantum (QBTS.US), also jumping nearly 10%, and Quantinuum (QNT.US), rising over 5%—announced Tuesday that they too have signed final agreements with the Commerce Department. These three emerging quantum firms will receive a combined $100 million to accelerate R&D projects aimed at overcoming critical technical challenges associated with the large-scale expansion and development of superconducting quantum computers. The US government is clearly striving for long-term competitive advantage, and the fund allocation indicates a particular emphasis on mastering the core manufacturing foundation of quantum computing.
The combined $1.375 billion allocated to IBM and GlobalFoundries accounts for approximately 68.3% of the total funding pool. IBM plans to contribute $1 billion in cash, bringing the initial cash investment in the Anderon project to $2 billion, and will build a 300-millimeter quantum wafer foundry platform serving both IBM and external customers. This reveals that the US aims to simultaneously capture key positions across quantum chip processes, manufacturing capacity, supply chains, and the commercial ecosystem—rather than betting solely on a breakthrough from any single quantum computing company. The Quantum Administrative Action announced in June further emphasized national strategy, trusted supply chains, and industrialization.
Under this subsidy agreement, GlobalFoundries is eligible to receive up to $375 million over five years, with disbursements tied to the achievement of designated milestones. Benefiting from the stimulus and bullish sentiment generated by this quantum-related government subsidy, GlobalFoundries' stock rose more than 3% in early US trading. For investors, the value of this round of policy subsidies lies in reducing financing constraints for R&D and manufacturing expansion while increasing the visibility of industrialization. GlobalFoundries and quantum foundry platforms can serve multiple technology routes; emerging quantum companies gain funding to advance error correction, scalable control, and system integration. Subsidy amounts, qubit counts, and commercial revenue remain distinct metrics: what truly determines long-term valuation is the ability to manufacture reliable systems that deliver practical advantages over classical computing on economically valuable tasks.
GlobalFoundries stated that the agreement advances the long-term goal of building a secure, US-based ecosystem for quantum computing chip development and manufacturing. Through its Quantum Technology Solutions business, the company is accelerating R&D, expanding access to advanced manufacturing capabilities, and enabling quantum computing companies to transition from research and prototyping phases to commercial-scale production. The company also recently announced the signing of a $300 million letter of intent with the Commerce Department's CHIPS Act R&D office to accelerate R&D in silicon photonics computing.
GlobalFoundries—A Primary Beneficiary of the US 'Chip Manufacturing Reshoring' Policy
GlobalFoundries is a significant beneficiary of the US push to localize chip manufacturing, holding strategic positions particularly in mature process nodes above 10 nanometers, customized specialty processes, and key supporting chips. The company possesses established manufacturing infrastructure in New York and Vermont, capable of accommodating domestic sourcing needs from automotive, communications, aerospace, and defense customers. Policy support has spanned two administrations: in 2024, the Commerce Department finalized manufacturing subsidies of up to $1.5 billion; in 2025, GlobalFoundries announced collaboration with the Trump administration to advance a $16 billion US manufacturing, advanced packaging, and R&D investment plan.
GlobalFoundries' primary competitive route differs from TSMC and Intel's focus on advanced logic processes at 3nm and below; instead, it emphasizes differentiated, customized specialty manufacturing processes. Its manufacturing platforms primarily include 12nm FinFET, 22nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI), as well as RF, silicon germanium (SiGe), power management, and customized silicon photonics technologies. Compared to TSMC, Samsung, and Intel's investments in advanced logic processes, GlobalFoundries emphasizes the energy efficiency, RF performance, voltage tolerance, reliability, and manufacturing cost required for specific applications; it also supports certain cutting-edge AI compute accelerators at the edge.
GlobalFoundries' direct path to benefiting from AI compute expansion lies in data center high-speed interconnect and power delivery upgrades. Large-scale AI GPU/TPU/XPU clusters require higher bandwidth and lower transmission power consumption, driving demand for silicon photonics, near-package optics (NPO), and co-packaged optics (CPO); the $300 million R&D funding letter of intent signed in July targets these areas, with its SCALE platform aiming for 400Gb/s performance. Regarding data center power chips, Navitas Semiconductor announced on September 1 that fifth-generation GaNFast products manufactured using GlobalFoundries' US 200mm silicon-based GaN process will begin initial wafer shipments in September. These two business lines correspond respectively to "how data is efficiently transmitted" and "how power is efficiently converted" in AI clusters, enabling GlobalFoundries to participate in AI infrastructure growth.
The quantum business adds another long-term manufacturing opportunity for GlobalFoundries. Its Quantum Technology Solutions (QTS) business plans to cover quantum processing units (QPUs), cryogenic readout and control chips, advanced packaging, and superconducting interconnects, while supporting multiple quantum computing technology routes. This positioning helps serve different quantum computing developers, transitioning laboratory prototypes into repeatable, scalable manufacturing processes. The up-to-$375 million in funding will be disbursed over five years according to milestones, significantly alleviating R&D funding chain pressure.
The Next-Generation Computing Revolution
This round of quantum computing support from the US Commerce Department essentially uses "R&D grants + government equity participation + domestic manufacturing" to compete for dominance in the next-generation computing industry. On May 21, 2026, the Commerce Department announced funding intentions totaling $2.013 billion for nine companies, covering two quantum chip manufacturing platforms—including GlobalFoundries—and seven quantum computing developers: IBM's quantum wafer foundry project Anderon, GlobalFoundries, Atom Computing, D-Wave Quantum, Infleqtion, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum, Rigetti Computing, and Diraq, administered under the CHIPS and Science Act's R&D office. The core objective is to advance quantum computing from laboratory prototypes to fault-tolerant systems with practical application value, while building domestic US manufacturing and supply chain capabilities; these arrangements also include conditions for the government to acquire minority, non-controlling equity stakes in the funded entities.
GlobalFoundries' up-to-$375 million agreement specifically supports "how quantum chips scale in manufacturing." Funds will be disbursed over five years based on designated milestones, directed toward the Quantum Technology Solutions business, including quantum chip manufacturing, cryogenic control and readout circuits, advanced packaging, and interconnects. Quantum companies producing experimental prototypes does not mean they can already stably and repeatedly manufacture large quantities of devices with consistent performance; GlobalFoundries' role is to convert these laboratory designs into reproducible manufacturing processes, lowering the industry's barriers from R&D to mass production. Latest developments show that some projects have progressed from funding intentions to formal agreement stages. On September 8, before US market open, Rigetti, Quantinuum, and D-Wave each announced the finalization of relevant agreements. Quantinuum also selected GlobalFoundries as one of its manufacturing partners for next-generation ion traps and control electronics, utilizing 300mm wafer processes. This demonstrates that GlobalFoundries not only directly receives manufacturing R&D support but may also benefit from technical cooperation and subsequent production demand from funded quantum enterprises—the policy is connecting quantum system R&D with upstream manufacturing.
Quantum computing is regarded as an important research and exploration direction in the "next-generation computing revolution." Its theoretical foundation rests on quantum superposition, entanglement, and interference. Classical bits take values of 0 or 1, while quantum bits can exist in superposition states of both; multiple qubits form joint states through entanglement, and algorithms use quantum gates to control interference, increasing the probability of obtaining target results. Although describing the state of n qubits involves 2ⁿ basis states, this does not mean all answers can be read simultaneously, nor does it imply all tasks will achieve exponential speedup. The breakthrough potential is primarily reflected in specific problems such as molecular and materials simulation, and large integer factorization; achieving long-duration, reliable computation also requires quantum error correction, organizing error-prone physical qubits into reliable logical qubits. The future is more likely to form a synergistic system combining quantum computing with classical computing.
Comments