Waleed Al Muhairi, COO of Mubadala, as quoted by Reuters said: “In four years, you'll see the first foundry in Abu Dhabi. We will be No. 2 in two years. It is an industry changing move to create, at home, this business. We want to compete with Intel.”

Mr Muhairi said: “Give us about four years and you'll see the first foundry. We're going head to head with TSMC, so we're going to fight it out.”

Mr. Muhairi said Abu Dhabi already committed $10 billion to the semiconductor business through its investment into Globalfoundries, which is co-owned by microprocessor vendor AMD and Advanced Technology Investment Co (ATIC).

 ATIC, a company wholly-owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, has recently acquired Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Chartered) of Singapore. This acquisition is ATIC's second major investment in the semiconductor industry and follows the company's March 2009 creation of Globalfoundries, a US-based semiconductor manufacturing company and a joint venture with AMD.

What is your opinion of this subject?

Have your say and discuss with your peers on the InfoGrok community.