The US government considers GlobalFoundries a good candidate to save Intel

Until now, it was believed that large suppliers of semiconductor products such as Qualcomm and Broadcom showed interest in purchasing Intel’s production assets, but a recent publication on the pages of Bloomberg allowed us to take a different look at the status of GlobalFoundries – according to American officials, it could make a good match for Intel.

Image source: GlobalFoundries

Bloomberg became aware of this following a discussion of the situation with the “Chip Law” with Mike Schmidt, who at the US Department of Commerce oversaw the implementation of the semiconductor industry subsidy program. Although the official did not directly mention likely scenarios for saving Intel, the authors of the publication referred to abstract sources familiar with the situation. According to them, in recent months, representatives of the US government have repeatedly come up with the idea of ​​concluding a deal between Intel and GlobalFoundries, which would create a large contract chip manufacturer with American registration. The officials were not even embarrassed by the fact that the share of Arab investors from the UAE in the capital of GlobalFoundries reaches 80%.

At least this did not prevent GlobalFoundries from being certified and receiving important defense orders. Intel also managed to receive the corresponding targeted subsidies in the amount of $3 billion last year, which suggests the special importance of both companies for the American defense industry. Negotiations on this topic with the leadership of GlobalFoundries were held several times last year, but thematic meetings with officials were ultimately limited to only theoretical discussions.

If we talk about the possibility of Intel receiving subsidies under the Chip Act, then a representative of the US Department of Commerce has no doubt that the company will get out of the crisis. In addition, she will receive money from the state as she achieves certain goals, and not just in advance against vague obligations. If Intel wants to sell its businesses to a new owner, the US government will have a say in the discussion of the likely deal, since the very “Chip Act” imposes its own restrictions on the recipients of subsidies, which is Intel.

In total, the US authorities have already distributed $33.7 billion in subsidies for the construction of enterprises within the framework of agreements concluded with companies, another $1.9 billion falls under preliminary agreements, only $2.7 billion has not been distributed. However, there are already applicants for some of these funds with whom negotiations are ongoing. By the way, $800 million was spent on administrative costs, so not all funds allocated by law will go to subsidy recipients. 20 agreements were concluded, preliminary agreements were reached in 14 cases. Few people wanted to take advantage of the preferential loans totaling $75 billion; in monetary terms, the bulk of the support from the US authorities will be expressed in tax deductions, allowing companies building enterprises to get up to 25% of their capital costs back.