January 10, 2013

GlobalFoundries CEO touts $2B investment with Albany visit today

By: Adam Sichko

Source: The Business Review

The CEO of GlobalFoundries Inc. visits the Capital Region today to tout a new $2 billion investment at the company’s computer-chip factory in Malta, New York.

The trip marks just the second appearance in this region for Ajit Manocha since he became the top executive for GlobalFoundries in mid-2011.

New York state recruited GlobalFoundries with a record incentives package now valued at nearly $2 billion. The company, owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, now employs 1,950 workers in Malta and expects to hire at least 300-400 more in 2013.

This morning, Manocha will be at the University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, a world-renowned hub for researching how to make computer chips more powerful and more efficient to produce.

Manocha will be joined by college representatives and Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy. Together, they’ll highlight a project GlobalFoundries has pursued for months, but officially committed to this week: a $2 billion, 500,000-square-foot technology R&D center.

The R&D center will employ 1,000 people when fully open in 2014, likely giving GlobalFoundries more than 3,000 employees overall at that point. No general contractor has been named.

The construction pushes the price tag of the company’s investments in Malta beyond $8 billion. It also deepens the company’s roots in Malta, increasing the chances, if only a little, that a second manufacturing plant may eventually be built on the same 223-acre property.

Manocha’s only other Capital Region appearance came in May 2012, when he briefly addressed an invitation-only crowd before President Obama spoke at the University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering.

“The Capital Region is now a hub in global technology. GlobalFoundries is proof that manufacturing jobs can come home and the engine of American innovation is alive and well,” Manocha said before Obama took the stage.

Manocha succeeded Doug Grose, who was born in Cooperstown and is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy. Manocha has worked in the industry for more than 30 years, most recently with Flash memory-chip maker Spansion, in California.