• GlobalFoundries Singapore will merge five fab control rooms into one command centre built with Siemens
• Sensor-equipped robots patrol the fabs, and the system will track more than 1 million data points once it goes global

GlobalFoundries Singapore is the first site to get the chipmaker’s AI-enabled facilities control centre, which the company plans to roll out across its global manufacturing network.

The US-headquartered contract chipmaker GlobalFoundries (GF) opened the Advanced Facilities Control Centre (AFCC), developed with Siemens, at its Singapore site on 26 October. In the first phase, GF will merge five control centres on the Singapore campus into one command centre. Each of the five currently serves a single fab (chip fabrication plant).

According to GF, the AFCC puts facilities data and operational metrics in one place and uses AI capabilities such as predictive maintenance to flag equipment problems earlier. Equipment health is monitored around the clock, which the company said would help teams find the root cause of faults sooner and reduce unplanned downtime.

Autonomous robots also feed the centre with data from the fab floor. The robots have thermal imaging, gas detection, vibration acoustics and other anomaly-sensing tools, and they carry out routine patrols and visual inspections across the fabs and campus. They send readings back to the AFCC in real time for analysis.

Yew Kong Tan, senior vice president and general manager of APAC manufacturing and the Singapore site at GF, said GF’s digital foundation and support from the government and wider ecosystem made Singapore the ideal place to begin.

GlobalFoundries’ Singapore build-out

GlobalFoundries has been expanding its Singapore operations. In September 2023, the company opened a US$4 billion expansion facility in the country. According to the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), the facility added 450,000 300mm wafers a year and brought GF’s total Singapore capacity to about 1.5 million wafers annually at the time.

GF has since grown its silicon photonics business in Singapore. Silicon photonics uses light rather than electrical signals to transmit data, and it is used in optical connections inside data centres. In November 2025, GF acquired Singapore-based Advanced Micro Foundry (AMF) and said the deal made it the largest pure-play silicon photonics foundry by revenue. GF said it would build on AMF’s 200mm platform in Singapore and scale to 300mm as market needs grow. It also announced plans for a silicon photonics R&D centre of excellence in the country, to be run in partnership with A*STAR.

EDB executive vice president Cindy Koh said the AFCC gives local engineers a chance to deepen their digital capabilities. She also pointed to other areas the agency wants to develop with GF.

“We look forward to strengthening our long-standing partnership with GlobalFoundries and advancing new growth areas such as advanced packaging and silicon photonics,” she said.

One view across GF’s fabs

GF said that once the AFCC is rolled out across its global network, it will integrate more than 1 million critical data points from facilities equipment. Teams will then be able to compare operational metrics from one site to another. The company also said that running facilities from a central point would reduce duplicated infrastructure and lower energy consumption and the emissions that come with it.

While the AFCC covers facilities equipment, GF already supports its fabs on the process side from hub in Penang, Malaysia, whose engineers can monitor and intervene in wafer fabs in Singapore, Germany and the US.

Pradip Singh, GF’s chief manufacturing officer, said the centre is meant to bring more consistency and visibility to facilities infrastructure across the company’s sites.

“Reliable facilities infrastructure is foundational to semiconductor manufacturing, and the AFCC represents an important step in building a more connected, intelligent and resilient global manufacturing network,” he said.

Isabel Chong, managing director of Digital Industries ASEAN at Siemens, said the project combines GF’s semiconductor manufacturing expertise with Siemens’ industrial digitalisation capabilities.

“With trusted data, secure infrastructure and deep industrial know-how, we can scale predictive maintenance, advanced automation and Industrial AI with Singapore as the starting point,” she said.

Tan said the AFCC would also change the work of GF’s facilities engineers.

“By equipping our facilities engineers with data and AI-driven capabilities, we are modernising jobs and enabling our people to focus on higher-value diagnostics and problem-solving, deepen their technical expertise and build rewarding careers in semiconductors,” he said.

GF did not disclose the cost of the AFCC or say when the global rollout will be completed.