SpaceX and Tesla site Terafab in Texas
SpaceX and Tesla will build Terafab, their planned chip fab, in Grimes County, Texas, starting with a $16.8 billion first phase to meet projected compute demand of more than 1 terawatt.
SpaceX and Tesla have picked Grimes County, Texas, as the site for Terafab, a vertically integrated semiconductor fab the companies first announced earlier this year, SpaceX said in an update.
The companies say the plant will make, package and test advanced logic and memory chips in one place. The plan calls for more than 100 million square feet of manufacturing space. SpaceX says the two companies together expect to need more than 1 terawatt of compute, which it calls "significantly larger than the current global supply." It names that gap as the main reason for building the fab, while saying it still values its current chip suppliers.
Terafab is meant to make two kinds of chips:
- Edge and inference chips for Tesla's Optimus robots and Cybercab robotaxis
- High-power chips for SpaceX's planned space-based data centers
The first phase is expected to cost about $16.8 billion, paid by SpaceX and Tesla. The companies say later phases could push the total "much higher." The site is expected to employ at least 3,000 people. In April, Tesla broke ground on a smaller research fab on the North Campus of Giga Texas, which it describes as the precursor to Terafab.
On the environment, the companies say the site will use water from Gibbons Creek Reservoir instead of local groundwater and will treat its wastewater on site.
The announcement gives no construction timeline, production start date or process-node targets. It also does not say who will supply the fab's equipment or process technology, or how the cost will be split between SpaceX and Tesla.