South Korean electronics giant Samsung is set to announce a $17 billion advanced chip plant spanning 1,200 acres of land in Taylor, Texas. The plant, which will make advanced logic chips used in mobile phones and autonomous vehicles, will add 1,800 jobs to the U.S. economy and is part of a $205 billion investment fund, according to the Wall Street Journal. The factory isn’t expected to go live until 2024.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is scheduled to make an “economic announcement” confirming the plan today. While earlier reports said that the world’s biggest memory chipmaker was also considering sites in Arizona and New York, Samsung took up the Texas offer because of a lucrative 90% tax break for the first 10 years. Samsung already has a working plant in Austin, Texas, but the upcoming plant is expected to be even bigger. Samsung did say that “a final decision has not yet been made regarding the location,” so it’s still possible for things to change.
The news comes at a critical time amid a global semiconductor shortage that could continue well into 2023. The sector is also seen as a major area of competition with China by the Biden administration. The U.S. share of manufacturing has been declining, which is why the Senate recently approved $52 billion in subsidies for new chipmaking plants.
Samsung sells a lot of chipsets to U.S. customers such as Qualcomm and Nvidia, and the new chip foundry will make things easier and cheaper for the chipmaker. TSMC, which is one of Samsung’s biggest competitors in the space, also has a $12 billion plant that will kick off production in Arizona in 2024, while Intel also has plans to invest in the U.S. for the next 10 years.
