The LoI centers on the optical technology that moves data at the speed of light and underpins the AI and high-performance computing data centers driving the global economy. Under the LOI, the Department’s CHIPS Research and Development Office is expected to award GF $300 million to advance next-generation optical materials, wafer technologies and advanced packaging, reinforcing U.S. leadership in a technology essential to AI infrastructure.

The award will accelerate GF’s development of next-generation silicon photonics wafer technologies, novel optical materials and advanced packaging, including proven 3D hybrid bonding, that enable the roll-out of near-packaged optics (NPO) and co-packaged optics (CPO). This work builds directly on GF’s recently introduced SCALE™ (Silicon Photonics Co-Packaged Advanced Light Engine) platform, targeting industry-leading modularity, 400Gb/s performance and a 5x increase in energy efficiency over current-generation implementations.

In a separate agreement, the U.S. Department of Commerce will receive equity from GF, representing approximately 1 percent ownership as of today's date, enabling the American public to share in GF's growth.

"With today’s compute supply chain investments, the Trump Administration is accelerating America’s innovation engine," said Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. "These strategic investments will enhance our country’s domestic capabilities, create high-paying jobs and keep America at the forefront of the semiconductor industry."​

"The CHIPS R&D incentives will support a breakthrough in compute and communication networks moving past traditional copper bottlenecking to power next-generation AI," said Bill Frauenhofer, the Executive Director for Semiconductor Innovation and Investment at the Department of Commerce. "Accelerating R&D for domestic photonics capabilities and advanced packaging provides American industry the extreme bandwidth and energy efficiency to scale complex AI workloads securely and rapidly."

Silicon photonics enables ultra-high bandwidth, energy-efficient data movement by transmitting information with light rather than electrical signals — delivering greater performance, higher interconnect density and lower power consumption as AI and data center workloads scale. GF’s silicon photonics platform is enabling today’s pluggable optical interconnects and is uniquely positioned to enable the industry’s transition to near-packaged optics (NPO) and co-packaged optics (CPO). Together with GF’s recently introduced SCALE™, customers gain a clear, scalable, U.S.-based path to meeting the demands of next-generation architectures. The work will leverage GF’s existing capabilities in Malta, N.Y., and Burlington, Vt., to help accelerate a U.S.-based path to high-volume silicon photonics manufacturing.

"Silicon photonics is essential to AI infrastructure. For a decade, the industry talked about the shift from copper to optical as something that was coming — today it is here, moving data at higher bandwidth and improved power efficiency as workloads grow more complex," said Tim Breen, CEO of GlobalFoundries. "GlobalFoundries has spent more than a decade building the technology, footprint and ecosystem to lead this transition, and we have the proven manufacturing foundation to scale it — in the United States — accelerating technology leadership for generations to come. We are proud to deepen our partnership with the U.S. Government, and the CHIPS R&D Office in particular, to accelerate our programs."

"As we accelerate development of next-generation optical materials and co-packaged optics, GF is building on our already qualified portfolio of photonic devices, proven 3D hybrid bonding and advanced packaging expertise, combined with our manufacturing scale to bring near-packaged and co-packaged optics to high volume — putting our customers on a direct, U.S.-based path to scaling optical connectivity for tomorrow’s AI systems," said Gregg Bartlett, chief technology officer of GlobalFoundries.

GF is working with leading customers to ensure emerging NPO and CPO architectures and next-generation optical engines are supported by U.S.-based silicon photonics R&D. These efforts reflect a shared focus on scaling the technologies that will drive the next wave of AI and data center performance.