A mega fab in Grimes County
Tesla and SpaceX have confirmed the location of Terafab, the advanced chip factory they are building together. The facility will sit in Grimes County, Texas, just north of Houston. The first phase carries an initial investment of $16.8 billion and is expected to create at least 3,000 jobs. The companies plan to hire from Grimes County and neighboring Brazos County first. The site will span more than 100 million square feet, making it one of the largest industrial projects of its kind in the United States.
One roof for the whole chip process
Terafab is designed as a vertically integrated semiconductor plant. Logic chips, memory, packaging and testing will all happen in one place. The companies say this setup allows fast, recursive improvements and speeds up the delivery of new compute capacity. The factory will make chips tuned for edge computing and AI inference. Those chips will go into Tesla's Optimus robots and self-driving Cybercabs. The plant will also build high-power processors for SpaceX's planned data centers in orbit. A post on SpaceX's website describes the facility as a bridge between today's chip supply and the compute demands of the future.
Part of a bigger plan
The $16.8 billion covers only the first phase. SpaceX's IPO filing, submitted in May, described Terafab as a general framework without binding commitments. The companies have suggested that total spending across all phases could reach as much as $119 billion. The project adds to Texas's growing role in advanced manufacturing. Local officials have pointed to water recycling, on-site wastewater treatment and other environmental measures planned for the site. Construction is expected to begin soon, with hiring focused on local residents. The announcement cements the partnership between the two Musk-led companies at the center of the U.S. push for more domestic chip production.
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