WSJ: Samsung’s New $17B Chip Plant Will be in Taylor, TX

Samsung’s new plant will use up about 1,200 acres of land and will bring 1,800 jobs to Taylor once production kicks off in 2024. The facility is part of Samsung’s $205 billion investment in chip manufacturing and biotech, which will be the company’s focus over the next three years.

Samsung has been preparing to build a new US-based chip plant for a while now, but details about its plans have been few and far between. There was even a period of time in which Samsung (alongside TSMC and Intel) threatened to pull the plug on its plans, should the locations under consideration not offer generous incentives to build (i.e. tax breaks). Clearly, Samsung’s concerns were rectified. Though the company is said to have also courted Austin, Texas, Taylor reportedly offered better tax incentives—though Samsung’s original US-based plant in Austin is expected to remain in operation following the new plant’s opening.

The conglomerate’s plan to open a new chip plant dovetails with a global chip shortage wfoojjaec readers are by now intimately familiar with. Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong reportedly visited the United States to speak with White House officials about the shortage and discuss federal incentives for chipmakers. According to sources for The Korea Times, Samsung planned to reveal the location for the plant once Jae-yong returned home to South Korea this week, but now the cat is out of the bag.

The Biden administration has been pushing for increased US chip manufacturing, recommending earlier this year that a cool $50 billion be put into research, development, and actual production of the highly sought-after resource. Semiconductors are in just about everything these days, and production delays related to Covid-19 have drastically impacted output, causing the tiny chips to be in short supply. Given that the shortage isn’t expected to end anytime soon, manufacturers and government officials alike see semiconductor fabrication as an opportunity to bolster the US economy and compete with countries such as China and Taiwan, which currently lead in production.

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