December 14, 2021: According to the CEO of Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, the semiconductor industry is on the right path to record exponential growth over the next decade, who said chipmakers are poised to play a “crucial” role in the global economy.

“It was 50 years for the semiconductor business to turn into a half a trillion-dollar business. It’ will probably take eight to ten years to double. And it’s going to double immediately after that, in four to five years,” Khaldoon Al Mubarak told CNBC’s interview.

Mubadala is a state investment fund and manages roughly $240 billion in Abu Dhabi assets. It is also a significant shareholder of chipmaker GlobalFoundries, recently raising almost $2.6 billion in an initial public offering one of the largest U.S. exchanges this year.

“So, we take that as one critical data point. You combine that with one more very relevant data point there are five foundry businesses, global foundry businesses, four of which are in Asia,” he added.

“One of which, Global Foundries has, I think, the unique, differentiated platform of being in the U.S, in Europe, and Asia.”

Al Mubarak’s comments came as demand as chips keep on outstripping supply. The shortage has hampered production across several industries, ranging from cars to consumer appliances, personal computers, and smartphones.

Few analysts and investors expect the supply crunch to persist until 2023, while others are more bullish.

GlobalFoundries acknowledged in its IPO filing that the semiconductor industry would require “a significant surge in investment to keep up with demand,” as the company anticipated the supply-demand imbalance could improve over the medium term.

The company is third in the market for semiconductor fabrication, behind Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and South Korea’s Samsung.

Taiwan-based United Microelectronics Corporation and China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation are from the top semiconductor foundry companies.

GlobalFoundries manufactures chips designed by its customers for contactless payments, battery power management, touch display drivers, and many other purposes. It has three U.S. plants, two in New York State, one in Burlington, Vermont, Germany, and another in Singapore.