SpaceX, the space company led by Elon Musk, plans to invest at least $55 billion (approximately 79.4 trillion won) to build a large-scale semiconductor production facility in Texas.
According to AFP and Bloomberg on Thursday (local time), Grimes County in Texas recently posted a public hearing notice regarding SpaceX's semiconductor plant construction plan. Grimes County, located in east-central Texas, is being reviewed as the site for the new semiconductor facility.
According to the notice, the facility will be developed under the name "Terafab." Initial investment will reach $55 billion. If additional construction proceeds, total investment could expand to as much as $119 billion (approximately 172 trillion won).
Terafab is a next-generation semiconductor production project conceived by Musk to address the expansion of the artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics industries. It is reportedly being jointly pursued by SpaceX and Tesla, with the goal of producing advanced chips.
Bloomberg reported that SpaceX and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, Tesla previously announced plans to expand its capital expenditure (CAPEX) to $25 billion this year. This represents a nearly threefold increase from the $8.5 billion executed last year.
Market analysts say Musk is aggressively expanding investment in data centers, semiconductors, and computing infrastructure, having designated AI and robotics as his core future businesses.
Tesla is also pursuing a plan to invest approximately $3 billion to build a research semiconductor fab within its Texas plant site. In particular, the Terafab project is reportedly considering the use of Intel's next-generation 14A process.
