Japan to fund up to two new chip fabs at GlobalFoundries in Malta

On Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, GlobalFoundries said the company will build and run up to two new 300mm chip factories at the Fab 8 campus in Malta, paid for by Japan under a U.S.-Japan initiative worth up to $21 billion. The first new fab is due to break ground before the end of this year and to start producing in 2029, and a go or no-go decision on the second is due by the end of 2028.

The chipmaker will not own the new fabs. At a celebration inside Fab 8 on Oct. 21, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the U.S. and Japanese governments will co-own them equally, Saratoga TODAY reported Oct. 22. “This is something that no one’s ever thought of before,” Lutnick said, according to the paper.

Fab 8, at 400 Stonebreak Road Extension on the Luther Forest Technology Campus, employs about 2,500 people and makes about 400,000 wafers a year, the Times Union reported. Local papers count the new buildings as the campus’s second and third fabs. The campus straddles the Malta-Stillwater line.

The main figures, from the announcement the company also filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission:

• Japan will put about $10 billion into the first new fab, and about $10 billion more would pay for a second.
• Each new fab would add about 900,000 300mm wafers a year at full output.
• The company estimates about 27,000 construction and “ecosystem” jobs and more than 1,000 manufacturing jobs in the Capital Region.
• Commerce will reallocate $955 million of the company’s existing CHIPS Act award to silicon photonics, silicon-germanium and advanced packaging in Malta and Burlington, Vermont.
• Commerce will receive about 4% of the company’s equity under a separate agreement.

Japan pays, two governments own

The money comes from a 2025 trade deal in which Japan pledged $550 billion of U.S. investment for a 15% tariff rate, Saratoga TODAY reported. Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Oct. 15 the New York plant is the first semiconductor project under the countries’ Strategic Investment Initiative and that construction is scheduled to begin by the end of 2026.

A special-purpose entity owned by the two governments will fund and own the buildings and equipment, chief financial officer Sam Franklin told investors, Engineering News-Record reported. GlobalFoundries will run the plants for fees and, over time, a share of earnings, the Times Union reported. Lutnick said the U.S. will collect half the cash-flow profits.

The federal stake in GlobalFoundries is less settled. The release gives Commerce about 4% under the new agreement, which the Times Union reported comes on top of a 1% stake Commerce already held, for about 5% in all; CEO Tim Breen said the government plans to cap its holding there. A week later, Lutnick put the stake at 7%, which he valued at about $2 billion.

Groundbreaking this year, first wafers in 2029

On Oct. 21 the Times Union reported ground being turned just outside Fab 8, and Breen told investors Oct. 14 that key suppliers were lined up, ENR reported.

The company has given these dates:

• Groundbreaking on the first new fab is planned for later in 2026.
• The first fab should be ready for equipment in 2028, ENR reported.
• A go or no-go decision on the second new fab is due before the end of 2028.
• If approved, that fab would make chips by 2031, company officials said, the Times Union reported.

How the 2024 expansion plan changes

In February 2024, Commerce proposed about $1.5 billion in CHIPS money for a new Malta fab, a Fab 8 expansion and Burlington upgrades, ENR reported. That month Gov. Kathy Hochul announced $575 million in performance-based Green CHIPS tax credits, tied to 1,508 direct jobs, and said construction was expected to begin in 2025. The federal award was finalized in November 2024, according to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s office, and the company later raised the U.S. spending plan to $16 billion, the Times Union reported.

That 2025 start did not happen. Japanese money now pays for the previously announced fab, and the third fab is new, the Times Union reported. “The new project builds on that vision and accelerates it,” spokesman Kenneth Craig told the paper. ENR reported the $955 million shifts to research and capital projects from 2027 without raising the total award, and the company committed to invest $5 billion in Malta and Burlington. The Times Union and Saratoga TODAY said that money had been meant for factory construction; Commerce did not immediately respond to ENR’s question about it. The state credits remain in place, the Times Union reported.

What the town planning boards approved in 2022

The Malta Planning Board approved a site plan for the second fab, called Fab 8.2, 5-0 on July 26, 2022, according to the board’s posted draft minutes, after ruling that the project fit within limits studied in the campus’s 2013 environmental review. Stillwater’s board approved a day earlier, since about 15% of the project is in that town. On May 28, 2025, Malta extended the approval to July 26, 2027, after the company’s lawyer said the market did not yet justify expanding.

The company says the site is permitted. No GlobalFoundries application appears on the planning board’s posted 2026 agendas through Oct. 27. The 2022 approvals, repeating terms from the 2013 review, list six road projects due before Fab 8.2 reaches full production, among them these:

• An eastbound right-turn lane is required at Route 9 and Malta Avenue.
• Left-turn lanes are required on East Line Road at Route 67.
• Lane changes are required at the Route 9, Route 67 and Round Lake Bypass roundabout.
• A traffic signal is required at the Interstate 87 Exit 11 southbound ramp on Round Lake Road.

Stillwater’s resolution also requires a $3 million payment toward the town’s purchase of Brown’s Beach at groundbreaking, under a 2013 community benefit agreement.

Traffic and housing around the campus

Malta Supervisor Cynthia Young told CBS6 the town and state built roundabouts when the first fab was coming. “The traffic was mitigated before there was any traffic,” she said. Housing may be harder: Laura Burns, CEO of the Greater Capital Association of Realtors, told the station inventory is low and many more homes are needed. Closer to home, Malta Gardens residents are weighing whether to buy their park as a sale nears.

Japan’s foreign ministry said Tokyo Electron, SCREEN Holdings and Tokyo Ohka Kogyo are among suppliers interested in the project, and Renesas Electronics has expressed interest in buying the plant’s products. One of Tokyo Electron’s U.S. group companies is Tokyo Electron America. Fab 8 general manager Grant McEwan said the company is working with education and workforce partners, though the announcement did not address school enrollment.

What is still unknown

Several questions remain open:

• The federal stake is unsettled: about 5% in all by the company’s account, and 7% by Lutnick’s.
• The company has not said whether the first new fab follows the 2022 plan unchanged.
• The release does not say how the new jobs count toward the 1,508 tied to the state credits.
• The Times Union reported 27,000 construction workers per factory; the release gives 27,000 jobs for the whole project.

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