An anonymous reader shares a report: Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX announced on Saturday a controversial plan to "socialize" the $230 million loss from its recent security breach among all its customers, a move that has sent shockwaves through the local crypto community.

The Mumbai-based firm, which suspended all trading activities on its platform last week following the cyber attack that compromised nearly half of its reserves in India's largest crypto heist, has outlined a strategy to resume operations within a week or so while implementing a "fair and transparent socialized loss strategy" to distribute the impact "equitably" among its user base.

WazirX will "rebalance" customer portfolios on its platform, returning only 55% of their holdings while locking the remaining 45% in USDT-equivalent tokens. This will also impact customers whose tokens were not directly affected by the breach, with the company stating that "users with 100% of their tokens in the 'not stolen' category will receive 55% of those tokens back."

Amazon paid nearly $1 billion to acquire the live-video startup Twitch Interactive in 2014. A decade later, the retail giant has received little financial return from one of its bigger acquisitions. WSJ: Known for hourslong broadcasts of videogame play, Twitch remains unprofitable despite periods of explosive popularity, according to current and former employees knowledgeable about its finances. Documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show Twitch's biggest-paying users are opening their wallets less, and third-party data reflect that growth in new users and engagement has slowed.

Following two rounds of layoffs in the past year, staffers are concerned that a third round could come this fall following an annual operational review, according to people familiar with the matter. Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy, who took over in 2021, has led a profitability review at the company and shown little tolerance for unprofitable businesses. Insiders said they worry Twitch is at risk of becoming what they called a "zombie brand" at Amazon -- internal projects or acquisitions that have been sidelined because they haven't lived up to expectations. These staffers pointed to book-review app Goodreads, online task finder Mechanical Turk and discount website Woot.

Ford's stock dropped 20% this week — mostly falling off the cliff Wednesday after failing to meet Wall Street's expectations for its quarterly profits, according to MarketWatch — and notching "another billion-dollar loss on EVs." "The remaking of Ford is not without its growing pains," Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley said on a call with investors after the results. "We look forward to proving our EV strategy out. That has become more realistic and sharpened by the tough environment." Ford is "confident" it can reduce losses and sustain a profitable business in the future, he added. The car maker plans to focus on "very differentiated" EVs priced under $40,000 and $30,000, and on two segments, work and adventure, Farley said.

Larger EVs will be part of the picture, but success there will require more breakthroughs on costs, the CEO said, adding that Ford's EV journey overall has been "humbling...."

The results included an EBIT loss of $1.1 billion for Ford's EV segment, "amid ongoing industrywide pricing pressure on first-generation electric vehicles and lower wholesales," the car maker said... Ford kept its expectations that the EV business will lose between $5.0 billion and $5.5 billion for the year, "with continued pricing pressure and investments in next-generation electric vehicles," it said.
Ford's CEO went on to say that their company is totally open to partnerships for electric vehicles, according to the article. "This is absolutely a flip-the-script moment for our company."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the news.

The U.K. government "will substantially increase offshore wind investment in the next five years," writes long-time Slashdot reader shilly — "in partnership with the Crown Estate (a public corporation that owns land including the coastal seabed on behalf of the monarch)." It will do this via its new state-owned energy generation [and investment] company, Great British Energy. The new approach includes ensuring grid connections are in place, and is in tandem with changes to the UK's planning regime that should reduce the ability of NIMBY groups to prevent infrastructure build-outs. Since [the Labour Party] came to power 20 days ago, the government has also approved three new solar farms and reversed a ban on onshore wind.
Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a speech Thursday that "I don't just want to be in the race for clean energy; I want us to win the race for clean energy," according to an article by BNN Bloomberg: Thursday's announcement marks the first concrete step by the government to use Great British Energy in its quest for a zero-carbon electric grid by 2030. The collaboration with the Crown Estate, owners of the UK's seabed, means the public sector will get involved in projects earlier and may attract more private funding... Great British Energy is receiving £8.3 billion of taxpayer money to own and operate assets in collaboration with the private sector.
The article points out that "By allowing borrowing, the government believes 20-30 gigawatts of new offshore wind seabed leases can be secured by 2030."

As Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in his speech, "We've got the potential, we've got the ports, we've got the people, the skills."

Longtime Slashdot reader sandbagger shares a report from The Verge: Early termination fees are "a bit like heroin for Adobe," according to an Adobe executive quoted in the FTC's newly unredacted complaint against the company for allegedly hiding fees and making it too hard to cancel Creative Cloud. "There is absolutely no way to kill off ETF or talk about it more obviously" in the order flow without "taking a big business hit," this executive said. That's the big reveal in the unredacted complaint, which also contains previously unseen allegations that Adobe was internally aware of studies showing its order and cancellation flows were too complicated and customers were unhappy with surprise early termination fees. In response to the quote, Adobe's general counsel and chief trust officer, Dana Rao, said that he was "disappointed in the way they're continuing to take comments out of context from non-executive employees from years ago to make their case."

Rao added that the person quoted was not on the leadership team that reports to CEO Shantanu Narayen and that whether to charge early termination fees would "not be their decision." The early termination fees in the FTC case represent "less than half a percent of our annual revenue," Rao told The Verge. "It doesn't drive our business, it doesn't drive our business decisions."

More students are getting high scores on Advanced Placement tests, long seen as a gateway to elite college admissions as well as a way to earn college credit during high school. From a report: Changes by the tests' maker in recent years have shifted scores upward. That has led to hundreds of thousands of additional students getting what's considered a passing score -- 3 or above on the 1-to-5 scale -- on exams in popular courses including AP U.S. History and AP U.S. Government.

The nonprofit behind the tests, College Board, says it updated the scoring by replacing its panel of experts with a large-scale data analysis to better reflect the skills students learn in the courses. Some skeptical teachers, test-prep companies and college administrators see the recent changes as another form of grade inflation, and a way to boost the organization's business by making AP courses seem more attractive.

"It is hard to argue with the premise of AP, that students who are talented and academically accomplished can get a head start on college," said Jon Boeckenstedt, the vice provost of enrollment at Oregon State University. "But I think it's a business move." The number of students cheering their higher AP scores could rise again next year. The College Board said it is still recalibrating several other subjects, including its most popular course, AP English Language, which attracts more than half a million test takers.

Lindsay Clark reports via The Register: Only 14 percent of Oracle Java subscribers plan to stay on Big Red's runtime environment, according to a study following the introduction of an employee-based subscription model. At the same time, 36 percent of the 663 Java users questioned said they had already moved to the employee-based pricing model introduced in January 2023. Shortly after the new model was implemented, experts warned that it would create a significant price hike for users adopting it. By July, global tech research company Gartner was forecasting that those on the new subscription package would face between two and five times the costs compared with the previous usage-based model.

As such, among the 86 percent of respondents using Oracle Java SE who are currently moving or plan to move all or some of their Java applications off Oracle environments, 53 percent said the Oracle environment was too expensive, according to the study carried out by independent market research firm Dimensional Research. Forty-seven percent said the reason for moving was a preference for open source, and 38 percent said it was because of uncertainty created by ongoing changes in pricing, licensing, and support. [...]

To support OpenJDK applications in production, 46 percent chose a paid-for platform such as Belsoft Liberica, IBM Semeru, or Azul Platform Core; 45 percent chose a free supported platform such as Amazon Corretto or Microsoft Build of OpenJDK; and 37 percent chose a free, unsupported platform. Of the users who have already moved to OpenJDK, 25 percent said Oracle had been significantly more expensive, while 41 percent said Big Red's licensing had made it somewhat more expensive than the alternative. The survey found three-quarters of Java migrations were completed within a year, 23 percent within three months.

North Korean hackers have conducted a global cyber espionage campaign to try to steal classified military secrets to support Pyongyang's banned nuclear weapons programme, the United States, Britain and South Korea said in a joint advisory on Thursday. From a report: The hackers, dubbed Anadriel or APT45 by cybersecurity researchers, have targeted or breached computer systems at a broad variety of defence or engineering firms, including manufacturers of tanks, submarines, naval vessels, fighter aircraft, and missile and radar systems, the advisory said. "The authoring agencies believe the group and the cyber techniques remain an ongoing threat to various industry sectors worldwide, including but not limited to entities in their respective countries, as well as in Japan and India," the advisory said.

It was co-authored by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and cyber agencies, Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), and South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS). "The global cyber espionage operation that we have exposed today shows the lengths that DPRK state-sponsored actors are willing to go to pursue their military and nuclear programmes," said Paul Chichester at the NCSC, a part of Britain's GCHQ spy agency. The FBI also issued an arrest warrant for one of the alleged North Korean hackers, and offered a reward of up to $10 million for information that would lead to his arrest. He was charged with hacking and money laundering, according to a poster uploaded to the FBI's Most Wanted website on Thursday.

A NASA committee determined that the Chandra X-ray Observatory would have to cease operations under the proposed budget cuts in NASA's 2025 budget. The committee reviewed various options but found that only shutting down Chandra fit within the proposed budget, although alternatives could keep the observatory running with limited capabilities. SpaceNews reports: NASA established the Operations Paradigm Change Review (OPCR) committee this spring to look at ways of reducing the costs of operating Chandra and the Hubble Space Telescope as part of broader efforts to deal with a billion-dollar shortfall in agency science funding. The fiscal year 2025 budget proposal included a 40% cut in Chandra's budget, with further reductions through 2029, while cutting Hubble's budget by 10% in 2025. Astronomers strongly opposed the proposed cuts, particularly for Chandra. They argued that the reductions would effectively shut down the telescope, a conclusion backed by Patrick Slane, director of the Chandra X-Ray Center, in an open letter shortly after the release of the budget proposal.

The OPCR concurred. "The committee agreed that the continuation of a scientifically viable Chandra mission is not possible within the funding guidance," said Rob Kennicutt, an astronomer from the University of Arizona and Texas A&M University who served on the review committee, in a July 23 presentation at a meeting of the Astrophysics Advisory Committee, or APAC. "This is a serious threat to the observatory." Shutting down Chandra was one of four options presented to the OPCR by the Chandra team and the only one, he said, that fit within NASA's proposed budget profile. Three others would keep Chandra going with reduced capabilities and with budgets higher than what NASA proposed but below current levels. "We think it's possible to run Chandra for less money" than today, he said, "but more than what they were given."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Angry T-Mobile customers have filed a class action lawsuit over the carrier's decision to raise prices on plans that were advertised as having a lifetime price guarantee. "Based upon T-Mobile's representations that the rates offered with respect to certain plans were guaranteed to last for life or as long as the customer wanted to remain with that plan, each Plaintiff and the Class Members agreed to these plans for wireless cellphone service from T-Mobile," said the complaint (PDF) filed in US District Court for the District of New Jersey. "However, in May 2024, T-Mobile unilaterally did away with these legacy phone plans and switched Plaintiffs and the Class to more expensive plans without their consent."

The complaint, filed on July 12, has four named plaintiffs who live in New Jersey, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. They are seeking to represent a class of all US residents "who entered into a T-Mobile One Plan, Simple Choice plan, Magenta, Magenta Max, Magenta 55+, Magenta Amplified or Magenta Military Plan with T-Mobile which included a promised lifetime price guarantee but had their price increased without their consent and in violation of the promises made by T-Mobile and relied upon by Plaintiffs and the proposed class." The complaint seeks "restitution of all amounts obtained by Defendant as a result of its violation," plus interest. It also seeks statutory and punitive damages, and an injunction to prevent further "wrongful, unlawful, fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair conduct." The report notes that the lawsuit centers around T-Mobile's broken "Un-contract" promise made in January 2017, which assured customers that their T-Mobile One plan prices would never increase unless they decided to change their plans. Despite the guarantee, T-Mobile included a significant caveat in a FAQ on its website, stating they would only cover the final month's bill if the price was raised and the customer decided to cancel. Many customers missed this caveat, leading to confusion and frustration when prices were later hiked.

The lawsuit also addresses the transition from the "Un-contract" to a new "Price Lock" guarantee, which initially offered more protection but was later weakened, causing further dissatisfaction. The FCC said it has received around 1,600 complaints regarding these price hikes by late June.

A surge in new oil and gas production in 2024 threatens to unleash nearly 12 billion tonnes of planet-heating emissions, with the world's wealthiest countries -- such as the US and the UK -- leading a stampede of fossil fuel expansion in spite of their climate commitments, new data reveals. From a report: The new oil and gas field licences forecast to be awarded across the world this year are on track to generate the highest level of emissions since those issued in 2018, as heatwaves, wildfires, drought and floods cause death and destruction globally, according to analysis of industry data by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). The 11.9bn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions -- which is roughly the same as China's annual carbon pollution -- resulting over their lifetime from all current and upcoming oil and gas fields forecast to be licensed by the end of 2024 would be greater than the past four years combined. The projection includes licences awarded as of June 2024, as well as the oil and gas blocks open for bidding, under evaluation or planned.

Meanwhile, fossil fuel firms are ploughing more money into developing new oil and gas sites than at any time since the 2015 Paris climate deal, when the world's governments agreed to take steps to cut emissions and curb global heating. The world's wealthiest countries are economically best placed -- and obliged under the Paris accords -- to lead the transition away from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources. But these high-capacity countries with a low economic dependence on fossil fuels are spearheading the latest drilling frenzy despite dwindling easy-to-reach reserves, handing out 825 new licences in 2023, the largest number since records began.

Negotiations on a global tax deal have extended beyond the June 30 deadline, with countries now looking to the G20 finance leaders meeting for progress. "The stakes in the negotiations are high," reports Reuters. "A failure to reach agreement on final terms could prompt several countries to reinstate their taxes on U.S. tech giants and risk punitive duties on billions of dollars in exports to the U.S." Some countries, like Canada, have already implemented their own digital services tax. Reuters reports: The so-called "Pillar 1" arrangement, part of a 2021 global two-part tax deal, aims to replace unilateral digital services taxes (DSTs) on U.S. tech giants including Alphabet's Google, Amazon.com and Apple through a new mechanism to share taxing rights on a broader, global group of companies. Standstill agreements under which Washington has suspended threatened trade retaliation against seven countries -- Austria, Britain, France, India, Italy, Spain and Turkey -- expired on June 30, but the U.S. has not taken steps to impose tariffs.

Discussions on the matter are continuing. An Italian government source said that European countries were seeking assurances that the U.S. tariffs on some $2 billion worth of annual imports from French Champagne to Italian handbags and optical lenses remained frozen while the talks continue, including at the G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro. A European Union document prepared for the G20 meeting lists finalizing the international tax deal as a "top priority." It said the G20 should urge countries and jurisdictions participating in the tax deal "to finalize discussions on all aspects of Pillar 1, with a view to signing the Multilateral Convention (MLC) by summer end and ratifying it as soon as possible." "Treasury continues to oppose all tax measures that discriminate against U.S. businesses," a U.S. Treasury spokesperson said in response to Canada's move. "We encourage all countries to finalize the work on the Pillar 1 agreement. We are in active discussions on next steps related to the existing DST joint statements."

During Alphabet's second-quarter earnings call today, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat announced the organization will spend an additional $5 billion on its self-driving subsidiary, Waymo. "This new round of funding, which is consistent with recent annual investment levels, will enable Waymo to continue to build the world's leading autonomous driving technology company," said Porat. TechCrunch reports: Porat noted that Google will focus on improving overall efficiencies in its "other bets" segment, which includes innovative projects that are distinct from the tech giant's core search and advertising business. Other companies in this segment are Verily, Calico, Google Ventures and drone company Wing. "Waymo is an important example of this, with its technical leadership coupled with progress on operational performance," Porat continued. The executive noted that parent company Alphabet's 10-Q form, which has yet to be filed, will have more details.

Switzerland has enacted the "Federal Law on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfillment of Government Tasks" (EMBAG), mandating open-source software (OSS) in the public sector to enhance transparency, security, and efficiency. "This new law requires all public bodies to disclose the source code of software developed by or for them unless third-party rights or security concerns prevent it," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. "This 'public money, public code' approach aims to enhance government operations' transparency, security, and efficiency." From the report: Making this move wasn't easy. It began in 2011 when the Swiss Federal Supreme Court published its court application, Open Justitia, under an OSS license. The proprietary legal software company Weblaw wasn't happy about this. There were heated political and legal fights for more than a decade. Finally, the EMBAG was passed in 2023. Now, the law not only allows the release of OSS by the Swiss government or its contractors, but also requires the code to be released under an open-source license "unless the rights of third parties or security-related reasons would exclude or restrict this."

Professor Dr. Matthias Sturmer, head of the Institute for Public Sector Transformation at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, led the fight for this law. He hailed it as "a great opportunity for government, the IT industry, and society." Sturmer believes everyone will benefit from this regulation, as it reduces vendor lock-in for the public sector, allows companies to expand their digital business solutions, and potentially leads to reduced IT costs and improved services for taxpayers.

In addition to mandating OSS, the EMBAG also requires the release of non-personal and non-security-sensitive government data as Open Government Data (OGD). This dual "open by default" approach marks a significant paradigm shift towards greater openness and practical reuse of software and data. Implementing the EMBAG is expected to serve as a model for other countries considering similar measures. It aims to promote digital sovereignty and encourage innovation and collaboration within the public sector. The Swiss Federal Statistical Office (BFS) is leading the law's implementation, but the organizational and financial aspects of the OSS releases still need to be clarified.

Amazon's strategy to set prices low for Echo speakers and other smart devices, expecting them to generate income elsewhere in the tech giant, hasn't paid off [paywalled]. From a report: Amazon's Echo speakers are the type of business success companies don't want: a widely purchased product that is also a giant money loser. Chief Executive Andy Jassy is trying to plug that hole -- and move away from the Amazon accounting tactic that helped create it. When Amazon launched the Echo smart home devices with its Alexa voice assistant in 2014, it pulled a page from shaving giant Gillette's classic playbook: sell the razors for a pittance in the hope of making heaps of money on purchases of the refill blades.

A decade later, the payoff for Echo hasn't arrived. While hundreds of millions of customers have Alexa-enabled devices, the idea that people would spend meaningful amounts of money to buy goods on Amazon by talking to the iconic voice assistant on the underpriced speakers didn't take off. Customers actually used Echo mostly for free apps such as setting alarms and checking the weather. "We worried we've hired 10,000 people and we've built a smart timer," said a former senior employee.

As a result, Amazon has lost tens of billions of dollars on its devices business, which includes Echos and other products such as Kindles, Fire TV Sticks and video doorbells, according to internal documents and people familiar with the business. Between 2017 and 2021, Amazon had more than $25 billion in losses from its devices business, according to the documents. The losses for the years before and after that period couldn't be determined.

An amateur photographer has documented his experience with at-home color film development and digitization. The process, initially undertaken for cost savings, involves a complex setup including a changing bag, developing tank, chemicals, and a DSLR scanning system, the author argues. Key challenges reported include film loading in darkness and achieving consistent image quality. Despite mixed results, the hobbyist -- Jason Koebler, an editor of 404 Media, a new publication that we have linked to quite a few times in recent months -- nonetheless cites satisfaction with the artistic and analog aspects of the process. He concludes: I have obviously (obviously!) not saved any money yet by doing this myself at home. I have spent many hundreds of dollars to develop about 20 rolls of film at home, and have achieved results that I am both amazed by and also frustrated with. The amazement comes from the fact that any of this actually works at all, and the knowledge that I am trying my best and having fun. The frustration comes from the blurry photos. It's all part of the process, I guess.

OpenResearch, a lab funded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has released initial findings from a comprehensive study on unconditional cash transfers. The experiment, conducted from 2020 to 2023, provided $1,000 monthly to 1,000 low-income Americans across Illinois and Texas. Results showed recipients primarily used the funds for basic needs and increased spending on healthcare and leisure activities.

While the cash boost led to some positive outcomes, including increased business startups among Black recipients and women, it did not significantly improve long-term financial health or physical well-being. The study also noted a reduction in work hours among participants, with earnings dropping by at least 12 cents for every dollar received.

J. Michael Cline, the co-founder of Fandango, died from suicide this week after falling from the twentieth floor of a Manhattan hotel. The New York Times reports: Mr. Cline, who was 64, co-founded Fandango in 2000 and left the company in 2011, according to his LinkedIn profile. The company -- familiar to many from its splashy logo, an orange "F" in the shape of a ticket stub -- was later acquired by Comcast and is currently owned by NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. For years, the company dominated movie-ticket sales, handling ticketing for several major theater chains and making money by charging a processing fee for online ticket sales and by selling advertising on its site.

At the time of its launch, Mr. Cline offered a pithy explanation for the company's name: "A Fandango is fast and fun," he told Variety. "Fandango is the perfect match to a service designed to make going to the movies easier and more enjoyable than ever before." Art Levitt, the co-founder and former chief operating officer and president of Fandango, remembered Mr. Cline as brilliant, creative and loyal, sticking it out even in "tough" times. TechCrunch provides additional information about Mr. Cline: He left the company in 2011, roughly four years after the company was acquired by Comcast. Some early investors in the online ticketing service were General Atlantic and TCV. Cline was also managing partner of Accretive, a venture capital firm he founded in 1999. He built startups throughout his career, including R1 RCM, Accumen, Accolade, Everspring, Dresr and Insureon. Starting in 2018, Cline served as the executive chairman at the venture firm Juxtapose, which invests in technology businesses. During his time there, Cline enjoyed investing in healthcare companies, according to his staff page. Some of Juxtapose's portfolio companies include Tend, Nectar and Great Jones.

Valve had its employee and payroll data leaked through a poorly redacted document in an antitrust lawsuit in May, offering a rare glimpse into the company's small but impactful workforce over the years. As first noticed by SteamDB's Pavel Djundik, Valve's significant influence in PC gaming transactions has been maintained by just a few hundred employees. Kyle Orland reports via Ars Technica: It's striking to consider just how small Valve is compared to other major players in the game industry. In 2021, Microsoft estimated Valve's annual revenue at $6.5 billion, roughly on the same scale as EA's $7.5 billion in 2024 revenue. But Steam achieved those numbers with around 350 employees, compared to well over 13,000 people employed by EA. The disparity highlights just how much money Valve brings in with a relatively small workforce. And a lot of that is thanks to the chunk of revenue Valve takes from every sale on Steam. The dominant PC gaming marketplace has seen a massive increase in the number of annual game releases since 2012 or so, thanks to initiatives like Steam Greenlight and Steam Direct.

Yet, surprisingly, the size of the "Steam" department inside Valve has shrunk in recent years, from a peak of 142 employees in 2015 down to just 79 in 2021. From the outside, having just 79 employees keeping track of more than 11,000 Steam releases in 2021 is a pretty incredible ratio. Some readers may also be surprised that Valve's "Games" department has represented a majority of the company's headcount since 2003. That has remained true (though to a lesser extent) even in more recent years, as Valve's output of new games has become much more occasional. It seems likely a large number of those Games department employees are devoted to ultra-popular Valve games like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2, which enjoy tens of millions of players and need significant support work.

The leaked data also shows the slow rise of Valve's small Hardware department, which started with just three employees in 2011 as the company began work on its doomed Steam Machines initiative. Transitioning into the Valve Index era in the late 2010s, the hardware department still represented just a few dozen people and a paltry 3 to 4 percent of the company's annual payroll. By the time we hit 2021 and the run-up to the Steam Deck, the Hardware division still makes up just 12 percent of Valve's small total headcount. Looking back, it's impressive that such a small team was able to create a portable gaming device that quickly spawned a whole micro-industry of imitators. We can only hope the Hardware team got a little more employee support in the wake of the Steam Deck's market success.

Matthew Connatser reports via The Register: US government is granting GlobalWafers up to $400 million in CHIPS Act cash to help fund its 300mm wafer manufacturing facilities in Texas and Missouri. The Commerce Department said GlobalWafers' Texas plant is a significant milestone for the US as it's the country's first facility for manufacturing 300mm wafers, the kind that are used for modern processes. The Missouri site will produce a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) variant of 300mm wafers, which are more geared towards defense and aerospace applications where chips need to be less prone to failure. Plans to build the Texas wafer plant were first revealed just over two years ago by the Taiwanese chip biz. It was an alternative use of a few billion dollars that were originally earmarked for acquiring German wafer maker Siltronic, an acquisition which didn't go as hoped due to resistance from German regulators.

The Missouri plant meanwhile was announced in 2021 as a partnership between GlobalWafers and GlobalFoundries, the chip fab spun off from AMD that now focuses on older nodes rather than the cutting edge. This fab seems to be the smaller of the two, considering that its budget when first announced was just $800 million, and that seems to also cover an expansion of a 200mm SOI wafer plant. In total, GlobalWafers' Texas and Missouri factories will cost around four billion dollars, which means the maximum award funded by the CHIPS Act would cover up to ten percent of the budget. The Commerce Department claims that facilities will create 1,700 jobs in construction and 880 in manufacturing.