The Pentagon begins to buy chips from the foreign companies

2016: The Pentagon will buy Globalfoundries chips

The Ministry of Defence of the United States begins to buy chips of foreign production. The Wall Street Journal with reference to Andre Gudger, the deputy assistant to the state secretary of the Pentagon reports about it on production and industrial policy.

According to him, the Ministry of Defence of the USA signed the seven-year contract with Globalfoundries, one of four world's largest contract producers of chips. Terms of agreement do not reveal, but it is known that the company will deliver chips for spy satellites, missile weapon and warplanes.

The Pentagon begins to buy chips from the foreign companies

Owners of Globalfoundries is the investment group of the government of Abu Dhabi of Advanced Technology Investment Company. Thus, the Pentagon formally for the first time begins to use chips of foreign production.

However, Globalfoundries has deep American roots: the company was created based on production division of AMD and in 2015 purchased at IBM semiconductor business for $1.5 billion. Among the purchased assets there were two plants IBM. As notes the edition, about ten years IBM was practically monopolist in deliveries of chips for the Pentagon.

The American legislators and regulators publicly expressed more than once concern about use of the only supply source of military advanced chips by the Defense Ministry. The Pentagon reacted to this criticism and began to expand network of suppliers to be in time behind development of commercial technologies and to apply them in the purposes.

Our purpose is in looking globally. We want that we had an access to the last and best technologies — André Gadger said.

The edition writes that chipmakers focused on consumer market in which strong competition leads to updating of chips here nearly in weeks while processors for needs of military are upgraded one or two times a year.^[1]

Notes