Tesla, Space X plan $16.8 billion Terafab chip plant in Texas
Tesla and SpaceX said Thursday that they will jointly build Terafab, an advanced semiconductor factory planned for Grimes County, outside Houston, Texas. The project's first-phase investment is $16.8 billion. Elon Musk, the companies' joint chief executive, said in a post on social media Thursday that the facility "will undoubtedly be the largest and most valuable single building in the world" when completed. SpaceX said the site is planned to have more than 100 million square feet of manufacturing space. The companies said the project will create at least 3,000 jobs in Grimes County and neighboring Brazos County. "This advanced semiconductor wafer fab will bridge the enormous gap between today's global chip supply and future demand for computing power," SpaceX said in a notice on its website. The Terafab project is driven by Musk's expansive vision of millions of robots taking over human work, autonomous robotaxis providing transportation and satellites becoming data centers for artificial-intelligence training and inference. That vision requires computing capacity far beyond what the global chip industry can currently supply. In a regulatory filing, SpaceX disclosed that its total investment in the project could eventually reach as much as $119 billion. However, SpaceX did not mention the Terafab plan during its first earnings call since going public earlier this week. Tesla said it would participate in the project but did not disclose the size of its contribution or the scope of its cooperation. "In both its mission and its scale of construction, Terafab is an epic undertaking," SpaceX said on its website. The factory is intended to mass-produce computing chips at an unprecedented scale and speed through a vertically integrated industrial campus. The planned site, with more than 100 million square feet of total manufacturing space, would cover the full process for advanced logic and memory chips, including fabrication, packaging and testing. "Concentrating every step on a single campus will enable continuous chip iteration and optimization and accelerate the deployment of next-generation computing hardware," SpaceX said. Terafab will mass-produce specialized chips for edge computing and AI inference for hardware such as Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot and Cybercab autonomous robotaxis. It will also produce high-power chips to support SpaceX's in-orbit space data centers. SpaceX also pledged that the factory's water would come from the local Gibbons Creek Reservoir rather than from groundwater extraction. Before the announcement, a heavily attended county hearing was held Wednesday, with hundreds of residents present. Residents were mainly concerned that the project would receive large tax breaks and that the decision-making process lacked transparency. In a statement issued by the Texas governor's office, Dr. Sara Borovich, superintendent of the Anderson-Shiro Consolidated Independent School District, said: "We believe this partnership agreement will strengthen local school districts, expand opportunities for development and help students better prepare for future challenges. The district's development has experienced many historically significant turning points, and this project is one of them. We are committed to ensuring that all opportunities created by the agreement are managed carefully and transparently, with every decision centered on the interests of students."
Elon Musk, the companies' joint chief executive, said in a post on social media Thursday that the facility "will undoubtedly be the largest and most valuable single building in the world" when completed. SpaceX said the site is planned to have more than 100 million square feet of manufacturing space.
The companies said the project will create at least 3,000 jobs in Grimes County and neighboring Brazos County.
"This advanced semiconductor wafer fab will bridge the enormous gap between today's global chip supply and future demand for computing power," SpaceX said in a notice on its website.
The Terafab project is driven by Musk's expansive vision of millions of robots taking over human work, autonomous robotaxis providing transportation and satellites becoming data centers for artificial-intelligence training and inference. That vision requires computing capacity far beyond what the global chip industry can currently supply.
In a regulatory filing, SpaceX disclosed that its total investment in the project could eventually reach as much as $119 billion. However, SpaceX did not mention the Terafab plan during its first earnings call since going public earlier this week. Tesla said it would participate in the project but did not disclose the size of its contribution or the scope of its cooperation.
"In both its mission and its scale of construction, Terafab is an epic undertaking," SpaceX said on its website. The factory is intended to mass-produce computing chips at an unprecedented scale and speed through a vertically integrated industrial campus. The planned site, with more than 100 million square feet of total manufacturing space, would cover the full process for advanced logic and memory chips, including fabrication, packaging and testing.
"Concentrating every step on a single campus will enable continuous chip iteration and optimization and accelerate the deployment of next-generation computing hardware," SpaceX said. Terafab will mass-produce specialized chips for edge computing and AI inference for hardware such as Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot and Cybercab autonomous robotaxis. It will also produce high-power chips to support SpaceX's in-orbit space data centers.
SpaceX also pledged that the factory's water would come from the local Gibbons Creek Reservoir rather than from groundwater extraction.
Before the announcement, a heavily attended county hearing was held Wednesday, with hundreds of residents present. Residents were mainly concerned that the project would receive large tax breaks and that the decision-making process lacked transparency.
In a statement issued by the Texas governor's office, Dr. Sara Borovich, superintendent of the Anderson-Shiro Consolidated Independent School District, said: "We believe this partnership agreement will strengthen local school districts, expand opportunities for development and help students better prepare for future challenges. The district's development has experienced many historically significant turning points, and this project is one of them. We are committed to ensuring that all opportunities created by the agreement are managed carefully and transparently, with every decision centered on the interests of students."