SINGAPORE – After more than two decades of a relatively quiet existence here, one of the world’s top chipmakers has expanded its footprint in Singapore to capture a leading position in a frontier technology seen as crucial to AI data centres.
Taiwan-based United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), which manufactures chips designed by other companies, started commercial production at its second fabrication plant here earlier in 2026, and is now ramping up its annual output.
The new US$5 billion (S$6.4 billion) facility is next to its first fab in Singapore’s Pasir Ris Wafer Fab Park, which started operations in 2004. The new fab is spread over 11,800 sq m, about the size of 16 football fields.
The chipmaker’s expansion plan will take its annual production of integrated circuit wafers – thin, round slices of silicon from which chips are carved out – to 1.3 million in the next few years. That will make Singapore UMC’s largest production base outside Taiwan.
Thomas Tey, UMC’s general manager, told The Straits Times that UMC will also double its number of skilled employees in Singapore from around 1,200 now to support the expansion.
He added that the strength of the research and development staff at UMC’s Centre for Advanced Specialty Technologies here will also grow as the company increases its focus on new technologies to boost the computing and networking power needed for artificial intelligence workloads.
