SpaceX may spend up to $119B on ‘Terafab’ chip factory in Texas

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space company that also includes his AI company, xAI, is considering spending $55 billion, initially, to build a semiconductor factory in Grimes County, Texas, according to thoughts on the County website.

The company estimates it could spend as much as $119 billion on the project, which would be a “multi-stage, next-generation, integrated semiconductor and advanced computing facility,” according to the filing.

Musk has done it before has been explained plans for the project, called “Terafab,” which will also see Tesla contributing. Companies are The cable manufacturing giant Intel is working hardit wants to make chips for AI servers, satellites, SpaceX’s data centers in space, and Tesla’s autonomous cars and robots.

The billionaire has said the facility will, at some point in the future, produce enough chips to supply 1 terawatt of power a year, arguing that semiconductor manufacturers are not producing chips fast enough to meet his company’s artificial intelligence capabilities. “We build Terafab or we don’t have chips, and we need chips, so we build Terafab,” he wrote.

However, Musk he wrote in a tweet Tuesday that Grimes County, Texas, was one of several locations being considered for the plant.

The write-up comes as Musk has stepped up efforts to ensure that xAI has enough computing power available to train and control its Grok models of AI models. He also wants to increase the importance of AI in data processing in space, which he says is the main reason for combining xAI with SpaceX. The combined company is said to have a value of $1.25 trillion and is waiting go public in June.