The News: GlobalFoundries and Georgia Tech are joining forces in a partnership aimed at expanding semiconductor research, educational opportunities, and talent and workforce development to benefit the chip maker and the university’s students and faculty. The partnership will work to prepare and train the next generation of skilled employees for jobs in the high-demand semiconductor industry. Read the full Press Release about the partnership on the GlobalFoundries web site.

GlobalFoundries Partners with Georgia Tech on Chip Research

Analyst Take: GlobalFoundries is making a great move here by directly connecting with the Georgia Institute of Technology to invest in joint semiconductor research and to train and nurture the future workers who will be needed to continue to grow the industry.

Even better, the new partnership also includes GlobalFoundries and Georgia Tech working together to create proposals for research and workforce development through U.S. CHIPS and Science Act funding, which will drive the importance of the collaboration even further.

I believe that workforce development is critical to these efforts due to the highly skilled nature of the precise and complex work of manufacturing semiconductor chips for a wide range of uses, from EVs to gasoline-powered vehicles to computers, consumer devices and more. This collaboration includes educational opportunities for Georgia Tech students and faculty, as well as important STEM outreach across all grade levels and joint research and development programs across GlobalFoundries’ product lines and technologies.

Through this program, GlobalFoundries hopes to create a deep pool of talent that it can tap into the future to help the company reach its developmental goals for new products and technologies in the incredibly competitive field of chip design and manufacturing.

I love the idea of GlobalFoundries doing something forward-thinking to help inspire students to pursue a career in chip design and manufacturing, which will benefit the students, their families, their communities, and the nation.

GlobalFoundries and Georgia Tech Partnership: What is Included

The agreement between GlobalFoundries and Georgia Tech calls for combined efforts to expand research and development opportunities on the chip maker’s products, as well as detailed curriculum development, training programs, internships, and joint faculty/engineering exchanges that will boost further innovations. Important outreach efforts will also be made to drive interest in semiconductors and highlight career opportunities in microelectronics at Georgia Tech, as well as the development of programs to enhance diversity and inclusion within tomorrow’s semiconductor workforce.

GlobalFoundries Labs will take the lead on the partnership within the company to work with outside academic, government, and industry collaborators.

GlobalFoundries plays a pivotal role in the chip ecosystem across a wide range of industries around the world, including automakers, IoT, telcos, and more. In February, the company announced a deal to provide General Motors with the exclusive capacity required to provide American-made semiconductor chips for the giant auto and truck maker. The collaboration with Georgia Tech will be important for this initiative and others that will arise in the future.

GlobalFoundries and other chip makers have been moving quickly over the last few years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic to raise production capacity after growth-stunting chip shortages arose around the world due to supply chain issues. This collaboration with Georgia Tech is aimed at ensuring that the next workers are ready to fill jobs in new fab plants as the plants come online.

GlobalFoundries Georgia Tech Overview

I am excited by this new partnership, which I believe will help encourage more students to take advantage of incentives to enter the chip making industry to secure good paying jobs and interesting careers while helping to keep the industry running smoothly.

Partnering with educational institutions like Georgia Tech is a smart and forward-looking way to bring these new workers in, and it can lead to other creative mashups with additional colleges and universities. Kudos to GlobalFoundries for its creativity and wisdom in this endeavor and congratulations to Georgia Tech in giving these intriguing opportunities to its students.

Disclosure: Futurum Research is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.

Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of Futurum Research as a whole.