U.S. to award GlobalFoundries $300 million for AI chip links

GlobalFoundries will receive $300 million from the U.S. government after entering a letter of intent with the Department of Commerce to accelerate U.S. silicon photonics leadership. The money will support research and development for faster, more efficient AI data centers. The announcement came in Malta, New York.

AI systems increasingly depend on huge numbers of processors and memory components that must exchange data at very high speeds with minimal delay, and the slow point is often the connection between chips, servers and memory banks rather than raw compute power. Silicon photonics and related optical technologies move that data with light instead of conventional electrical signaling, improving transfer speeds while reducing energy use in sprawling data centers.

The effort centers on 400 Gb/s optical links and fivefold energy-efficiency gains. It will support advanced optical materials and semiconductor packaging for AI infrastructure. Co-packaged optics places optical components closer to the chips they serve so data can move faster and with less power loss.

A July 29 notice from NIST announced letters of intent with seven companies for $874 million to accelerate semiconductor research and development for the compute supply chain. The latest GlobalFoundries funding also aligns with President Donald Trump’s push to support domestic semiconductor manufacturing and reduce dependence on foreign supply chains for critical technologies.

For GlobalFoundries, the money strengthens its place in the AI hardware stack even though it is not the best-known maker of flagship AI accelerators. The company has a global footprint spanning the United States, Europe and Asia, and it is investing in advanced packaging and silicon photonics for AI at scale.