Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi government fund that owns Advanced Technology Investment Company that controls chip maker Globalfoundries, said that neither ATIC nor Globalfoundries have ever reported profits. Nonetheless, Mubadala will continue to invest into ATIC as it believes semiconductor manufacturing technologies will not only gain importance globally, but will help to develop the economy of the emirate.

In a recent filing Mubadala said that ATIC (and consequently its main asset, Globalfoundries) had an accumulated deficit of 4.1 billion dirhams ($1.12 billion) as of the end of 2011 and made losses in the past two years, Reuters news-agency reports. In another disclosure Mubadala noted that ATIC continued to invest to make Globalfoundries a leading semiconductor manufacturing company resulted in GF becoming the world’s second-largest foundry by revenue in Q4 2011.

Mubadala also noted that no assurance is given that ATIC will be profitable in 2012 or in subsequent years, but it also indicated that ATIC could continue making further investments in boosting capacity and research in a bid to become a profitable catalyst for Abu Dhabi's economic development. For the emirate, it may be more important to create semiconductor industry within its borders than to gain direct profits from Globalfoundries.

Earlier this year Ajit Manocha, chief executive officer of Globalfoundries, said that the company would spend around $3 billion on capacity expansion this year, down from $5.4 billion in 2011. The company will continue to invest into all of its existing products facilities across the world, but not as significantly as in the previous year.

Earlier the company said it would not initiate construction of a new manufacturing facility in Abu Dhabi in 2012 due to uncertain market conditions. The fab in the emirate is still in plans, but the decisions about the construction start will be made at a later date.

Tags: ATIC, Mubadala, Globalfoundries, Semiconductor, AMD, IBM