Insider Brief
GlobalFoundries launched a new Quantum Technology Solutions business and signed a Letter of Intent with the U.S. Department of Commerce for $375 million in proposed funding to expand domestic quantum manufacturing capabilities.
The company said its new quantum foundry initiative will support multiple qubit approaches — including superconducting, trapped ion, photonic, topological, and spin qubits — while manufacturing key components such as quantum processor units, cryogenic control chips, and advanced interconnects.
Quantum companies and technology firms including Diraq, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum, Google, Microsoft, and NVIDIA said the initiative could strengthen the U.S. manufacturing base needed to scale utility-scale quantum computing.
GlobalFoundries (Nasdaq: GFS) (GF) today launched Quantum Technology Solutions, a new quantum business to scale the manufacturing capabilities the quantum industry needs to achieve utility-scale quantum computing. The new business launches with customer engagements, and a pipeline of quantum innovators positioned to scale on its platform.With more than a decade of partnership with the U.S. Government and customers across critical semiconductor technologies, and sustained investment in cryogenic CMOS, advanced packaging and materials science, GF has built the industrial layer that quantum companies, the U.S. Government and allied innovators can build on. These capabilities mark GF’s entry into the next generation of high-performance computing (HPC). While the past decade of HPC has been defined by advanced-node CPUs, GPUs and AI ASICs, the next generation will be focused on enabling real-world quantum computing, and GF will manufacture the complete quantum hardware solution from quantum processor units (QPUs) to the cryogenic read-out and control ICs that operate them and the advanced packaging and superconducting interconnects that bind them into systems.The effort is anchored by quantum companies already engaged with GF’s manufacturing and by the U.S. Department of Commerce, a longstanding partner of GF across critical semiconductor technologies. The U.S. Department of Commerce and GF have entered into a letter of intent to award GF $375M to accelerate the build-out of Quantum Technology Solutions, reflecting the national-security importance of a domestic quantum manufacturing base.In a separate agreement, the U.S. Department of Commerce will receive a strategic equity investment in GF, representing approximately one percent ownership as of today’s date, enabling the American public to share in GF’s growth.“With today’s CHIPS Research and Development investments in quantum computing, the Trump administration is leading the world into a new era of American innovation,” said Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. “These strategic quantum technology investments will build on our domestic industry, creating thousands of high-paying American jobs while advancing American quantum capabilities.”“GF’s role as a semiconductor manufacturing engine is accelerating America’s technology leadership. Deepening our partnership with the United States Government will support a coordinated national push to expand domestic manufacturing, build supply-chain resilience and ensure that revolutionary technologies such as next-generation quantum systems are developed and manufactured in the U.S.,” said Tim Breen, CEO of GlobalFoundries.A manufacturing-led approach to quantum scale-upQuantum Technology Solutions will be able to leverage GF’s trusted U.S. manufacturing capabilities, with flexibility across its U.S. footprint, to support the foundational capabilities the quantum industry needs to scale.GF’s proven FDX™ platform delivers the cryogenic CMOS that provides the sensing, control and readout functions required for quantum systems. Building on that base, GF is developing the manufacturing platforms to build QPUs across multiple qubit modalities — including superconducting, trapped ion, photonic, topological and spin — along with the cryogenic and superconducting heterogeneous interconnect platform that integrates these components into utility-scale quantum systems.“Quantum is at its inflection point. The hardware is moving from lab-scale to industrial scale, and that transition can only happen inside an advanced semiconductor manufacturing environment,” said Gregg Bartlett, chief technology officer of GF. “The cryogenic CMOS, advanced packaging and 3D heterogeneous interconnect needed for utility-scale quantum computing are exactly what we make every day. Just as CPUs and GPUs underpin classical compute, GF is building the QPU, bringing these capabilities to the leaders across leading qubit modalities and positioning GF as the partner of choice for utility-scale quantum computing.”Supporting a broad ecosystem of customers and partners“Diraq’s work with GlobalFoundries on FDX™ has been central to advancing our cryogenic CMOS and silicon spin qubit technologies on an established manufacturing node. As GlobalFoundries invests in a U.S. quantum foundry, we see a clear path to expand that collaboration, accelerate the development of high-performance silicon-based quantum processors and scale within a secure domestic ecosystem,” said Andrew Dzurak, Founder and CEO at Diraq.
