GlobalFoundries buys Singapore’s Advanced Micro Foundry in push to speed up AI data center networks

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By Stephen Nellis

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Chip manufacturer GlobalFoundries said on Monday it has acquired Advanced Micro Foundry (AMF), a Singapore-based chipmaker that focuses on silicon photonics, a fast-growing field that is being used in artificial intelligence data centers and quantum computers.

GlobalFoundries did not disclose financial details of the deal.

Silicon photonics technology can be used to integrate traditional computing chip technologies with optical networking technologies that use pulses of light to transmit data. The field is growing quickly, with Nvidia working with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to package together some of its networking chips with optical connections.

A range of well-funded Silicon Valley startups such as Ayar Labs, Celestial AI and Lightmatter are also pursuing the optical connections between chips, some of them using GlobalFoundries as a manufacturer.

GlobalFoundries is already a major player in silicon photonics, helping startups such as PsiQuantum, which is constructing a quantum computer in Chicago, build its photonic-based chips. With the acquisition of AMF, GlobalFoundries said it believes it will be the world’s largest silicon photonics maker and that it will establish a new research center in Singapore.

“As data moves faster and workloads grow more complex, the ability to move information with greater speed, precision and power efficiency is now fundamental to AI data centers and advanced telecom networks,” Tim Breen, CEO of GlobalFoundries, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)