ALBANY — U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer traveled to Saratoga County on Monday afternoon to help announce a “landmark” deal in which GlobalFoundries will make computer chips for Lockheed Martin, the $66 billion defense contractor that makes helicopters, fighter jets and other weapons and equipment for the U.S. military.
Schumer’s visit to GlobalFoundries’ Fab 8 headquarters and manufacturing campus in Malta came about an hour after he visited the Albany Nanotech Complex to announce a new federally funded workforce training program that will benefit tech companies across the state.
Both announcements are likely to help Albany NanoTech and GlobalFoundries win billions of dollars in federal aid through the federal CHIPS and Science Act, a $52 billion program Schumer authored and pushed through Congress last year. It’s designed to re-establish the domestic chip industry and its supply chain after decades of migration to Asia and China, which has become America’s largest geopolitical and economic foe.
The biggest announcement was made at GlobalFoundries, which said it has entered into a “strategic collaboration” to make chips for Lockheed Martin, the maker of helicopters and fighter jets for the U.S. military.
“This is great news,” Schumer said, standing on a stage outside Fab 8 with Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet and GlobalFoundries CEO Thomas Caufield. “We can’t rely on supply chains that are overseas.”
Taiclet, who said Lockheed already has “dozens” of chip suppliers currently that are based in the U.S. to conform with Department of Defense regulations, wouldn’t say how many chips it has agreed to buy from GlobalFoundries or if the two companies have signed a contract.
But the scope of the deal appears to be substantial in terms of cooperation.
Taiclet and Caulfield said the two companies would work on developing chips that…
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