On Wednesday, New York-based semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries announced big news: A $16 billion investment in research, development and manufacturing capacity at its Albany, N.Y.-area headquarters and Vermont plant in Essex Junction. The press release praised President Donald Trump, and included quotes from Apple CEO Tim Cook and top executives at SpaceX, General Motors and Qualcomm, which use the company’s high-tech chips. “Today’s announcement is a direct result of President Trump’s leadership and his vision to bring back high-paying manufacturing jobs and reestablish secure, domestic supply chains for critical technologies,” Thomas Caulfield, the executive chair of GlobalFoundries, said in the statement. But most of investments the company touted — $13 billion worth — had already been announced in February 2024, when Joe Biden was president. Much of the $13 billion is for long-term upgrades over more than a decade, the company said then. About $1.5 billion of it — including $125 million for the Vermont plant — came from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, a Biden administration initiative aimed at strengthening U.S. production of semiconductors. [content-5] The $125 million Vermont investment is a mix of cash and tax credits. It’s intended to help the plant produce next-generation gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductors. The chips are capable of operating at the higher voltages and temperatures required by electric vehicles and power grids. “This shows how much confidence that the Biden administration has in Vermont,” Joan Goldstein, commissioner of the state Department of Economic Development, told Seven Days at the time. “They’re willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Chittenden County. It speaks highly of our Vermont workforce.” Wednesday’s announcement included $3 billion in additional investments. When asked for more detail, a company spokesperson could not say how much of it was bound for Vermont or over how long a period. GlobalFoundries billed the latest investments as a “strategic response to the explosive growth in artificial intelligence.” That growth is accelerating demand for powerful, efficient semiconductors across “datacenters, communications infrastructure and AI-enabled devices.” The company named a number of other tech giants, including Apple, SpaceX, AMD, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., NXP and General Motors, which it said “are committed to reshoring semiconductor production to the U.S. and diversifying their global supply chains.” The announcement comes weeks after the Trump administration said it had canceled a $23.8 million Biden-era federal award that would have helped turn the Burlington area into a designated…
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