Last year foundries made about half of all logic chips (the ones that carry out computations, as opposed to memory chips, a more commoditised market).
Having built chip foundries or "fabs" in Taiwan, Italy, Japan and elsewhere, he decided to do the same in China.Two measurements sum up the stature of a chipmaker: the diameter of the silicon wafers it turns out (bigger is better), and the scale at which it etches them (the smaller the better).
Brian Krzanich, Intel's manufacturing head, says this means it can bring chips to market faster and with fewer faults than rivals who use external firms, known as "foundries", to make their chips.
Unlike traditional chip firms, which design and build their own products, foundries specialise in manufacturing other firms' designs.
So far, however, there is only a handful of such foundries in America and Europe, and each has its own production standards.An alternative approach is for technology brokers to set up a seamless supply chain for microsystems customers, from concept to production and packaging, using whichever fab is best suited to a given application.
ASEAN furniture-makers and nail foundries also beg for relief from the mercantilist advantage that a manipulated currency gives China.Most striking of all were China's actions at the Copenhagen summit on climate change, where the world's biggest emitter appeared churlish.
Once in the artist's employ, Mr Gorovoy coordinated with the foundries, dealers, curators and critics.
But textiles are drifting off to China and other parts of Asia, and chip foundries might follow, forcing Malta's manufacturers to move upmarket.
In the long run, they say, there will be only three viable entities, at least at the leading edge of chipmaking: Samsung in memory chips, Intel in microprocessors and TSMC in foundries.
And Abu Dhabi's investment in Globalfoundries is part not just of its preparations for the post-oil age, but also of a long-term plan to create a "global" alternative to foundries in Taiwan and mainland China.
If foundries, for instance, took a much larger piece of the pie, others in the value chain, such as chip designers, would find it hard to survive.From a political perspective, the shift towards Asia could matter much more especially for Europe.
