The United States Accelerates the "Next-Generation Computing Revolution"! GlobalFoundries (GFS.US) Secures $375 Million Quantum Computing Subsidy, New Quantum Forces Also Receive Funding

According to EqualOcean Finance APP, US chip manufacturer GlobalFoundries (GFS.US) announced on Tuesday that it had finalized an agreement with the US Department of Commerce CHIPS Act R&D Office to receive $375 million in R&D funding, accelerating the development trajectory of its Quantum Technology Solutions (QTS) business. This business aims to expand the domestic quantum computing-based semiconductor manufacturing scale in the US, and reinforce the country's position at the forefront of the global "next-generation computing revolution"—specifically securing absolute leadership in quantum computing technology.

Almost at the same time, the three major emerging US quantum computing companies—Rigetti Computing (RGTI.US) saw its shares jump nearly 10% in early trading, D-Wave Quantum (QBTS.US) also surged around 10%, and Quantinuum (QNT.US) gained over 5%. On Tuesday, all three companies announced final agreements with the US Department of Commerce to receive a total of $100 million for R&D projects, aimed at accelerating research and addressing key technological challenges during the large-scale expansion and development of superconducting quantum computers.

The US government is evidently striving for long-term leadership, with funding allocations demonstrating a particular emphasis on mastering the core manufacturing foundation for quantum computing. IBM and GlobalFoundries account for a combined $1.375 billion, roughly 68.3% of the total. IBM plans to match $1 billion in cash, bringing the initial cash input for the Anderon project to $2 billion, and will build a 300mm quantum wafer foundry platform for both IBM and external customers. This shows the US aims to secure critical positions in quantum chip technology, manufacturing capacity, supply chain, and business ecosystem, rather than betting on a single quantum company’s breakthrough. The quantum executive actions announced in June further emphasized national strategy, a trusted supply chain, and industrialization.

According to the subsidy agreement, GlobalFoundries is eligible to receive up to $375 million over five years, with disbursements tied to achieving designated milestones. Spurred by the quantum computing-related government subsidy and increased bullish sentiment, GlobalFoundries' shares rose over 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, and in increasing visibility for industrialization. GlobalFoundries and quantum foundry platforms can serve multiple technology paths; emerging quantum companies gain funding to advance error correction, large-scale control, and system integration. Subsidy amount, qubit count, and business revenue are different metrics: what will truly determine long-term valuation is the ability to manufacture reliable systems that deliver practical advantages in economically valuable tasks over classical computing.

GlobalFoundries stated that the agreement advances the long-term goal of establishing a secure, US-based quantum computing chip development and manufacturing ecosystem.

Through its Quantum Technology Solutions business, the company is accelerating R&D, expanding access to advanced manufacturing, and enabling quantum computing firms to scale from research and prototyping to commercial-scale production.

The company also recently announced signing a $300 million letter of intent with the US Department of Commerce CHIPS Act R&D Office, aimed at accelerating R&D in silicon photonic computing.

GlobalFoundries—One of the Biggest Beneficiaries of US Government “Chip Manufacturing Reshoring” Policies

GlobalFoundries is a significant beneficiary of US efforts to localize chip manufacturing, particularly enjoying strategic status in mature chip nodes above 10nm, customized specialty processes, and key supporting chip areas. With established manufacturing bases in New York and Vermont, the company is capable of meeting the domestic procurement needs of clients in automotive, communications, aerospace, and defense. Policy support has spanned two administrations: in 2024, the US Department of Commerce allocated up to $1.5 billion in manufacturing subsidies; in 2025, GlobalFoundries announced a partnership with the Trump administration to advance a $16 billion manufacturing, advanced packaging, and R&D investment plan in the US.

GlobalFoundries' main competitive strategy is not the advanced logic processes below 3nm pursued by TSMC and Intel, but differentiated specialty customized manufacturing technology. Its manufacturing platform primarily includes 12nm FinFET, 22nm fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI), as well as RF, SiGe, power management, and customized silicon photonics technologies. Compared with TSMC, Samsung, and Intel focusing on advanced logic, GlobalFoundries emphasizes attributes needed for specific applications such as energy efficiency, RF performance, voltage tolerance, reliability, and manufacturing cost; it can also support some cutting-edge AI compute accelerators for edge deployment.

The most direct path for GlobalFoundries to benefit from the expansion of AI compute power is through data center high-speed interconnect and power supply upgrades. Large-scale AI GPU/TPU/XPU clusters require higher bandwidth and lower transmission power, driving demand for silicon photonics, near-package optics (NPO), and co-packaged optics (CPO). The $300 million R&D letter of intent signed by GlobalFoundries in July was aimed at these areas, with its SCALE platform targeting 400Gb/s performance. In data center power chips, Navitas Semiconductor announced on September 1 that the latest fifth-generation GaNFast products, manufactured using GlobalFoundries' 200mm US-based silicon GaN process, would begin initial wafer shipments in September. These two business lines correspond 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 provides GlobalFoundries with another long-term manufacturing opportunity. Its Quantum Technology Solutions (QTS) business covers quantum processing units (QPUs), cryogenic readout and control chips, advanced packaging and superconducting interconnects, and supports various quantum computing technology routes. This positioning allows it to serve different quantum developers, turning lab prototypes into repeatable, scalable manufacturing processes. The up-to-$375 million funding will be disbursed over five years according to milestones, greatly easing R&D capital pressures.

The Next-Generation Computing Revolution

This latest round of quantum computing support from the US Department of Commerce is essentially an effort to win dominance in the next-generation computing industry through "R&D funding + government equity + domestic manufacturing." On May 21, 2026, the Department announced funding intentions of $2.013 billion for nine enterprises, including two quantum chip manufacturing platforms—such as GlobalFoundries—and seven quantum computing developers (IBM’s Anderon quantum wafer foundry project, GlobalFoundries, Atom Computing, D-Wave Quantum, Infleqtion, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum, Rigetti Computing, and Diraq) under the CHIPS and Science Act R&D Office. The core goal is to drive quantum computing from lab prototypes to fault-tolerant systems with real application value, while building domestic manufacturing and supply chain capacity; these arrangements include the condition that the government takes a minority, non-controlling interest in the subsidized entities.

This new GlobalFoundries agreement for up to $375 million primarily supports “scaling quantum chip manufacturing.” Funds will be allocated over five years based on specified milestones, for its Quantum Technology Solutions business, including quantum chip fabrication, cryogenic control and readout circuits, advanced packaging, and interconnects. The fact that quantum companies can make experimental prototypes does not mean they can already reliably and repeatably manufacture a large number of consistent devices; GlobalFoundries’ role is to translate those lab designs into reproducible manufacturing processes, reducing the barrier from R&D to mass production for the industry.

The latest progress shows that some projects have already moved from funding intention to signed agreements. Before the market opened on September 8, Rigetti, Quantinuum, and D-Wave all announced their respective finalized agreements. Quantinuum has also chosen GlobalFoundries as one of its manufacturing partners for next-generation ion trap and control electronics, utilizing 300mm wafer processing. This means GlobalFoundries is not only directly gaining manufacturing R&D support but may also benefit from technical collaborations and future production needs arising from subsidized quantum companies; policy is now linking quantum system R&D with upstream manufacturing.

Quantum computing is seen as a major research and exploration direction for the “next-generation computing revolution.” Its theoretical foundation involves quantum superposition, entanglement, and interference. Classical bits have values of 0 or 1, while quantum bits can exist in superpositions of both; multiple qubits can form joint states via entanglement, and algorithms employ quantum gates to control interference, boosting the probability of the target outcome. Although n qubits describe 2ⁿ basis states, this does not mean all answers can be read at once, nor that all tasks see exponential speedup. Its breakthrough potential mainly lies in specific problems like molecular/material simulation and integer factorization; reliable, long-duration computation requires quantum error correction, organizing error-prone physical qubits into robust logical ones. In the future, quantum computing is more likely to coexist and synergize with classical computing.