A new report says TSMC is exploring a role in Elon Musk’s Terafab project, the vast chip campus rising in Texas. According to the independent newsletter Culpium, the foundry has looked at helping operate a new wafer fab there, with Terafab potentially serving as an anchor customer. Neither side has confirmed the talks.
The timing follows Bloomberg reporting that TSMC is weighing a second major US production base, possibly near Dallas. That would extend a US footprint already anchored by a $265B Arizona commitment.
Sources in Taiwan’s supply chain point to as many as six advanced fabs in Texas, at roughly $20B each. The plan remains at an early stage.
Terafab is Musk’s bid to make advanced chips in-house for Tesla, SpaceX and xAI. Announced in March, the Grimes County site could eventually draw as much as $119B, with a first phase of $16.8B committed in August. It aims at the 2nm node and one terawatt of annual AI compute.
Intel joined in April as the project’s lead foundry partner, but Culpium reports that relationship has stalled.
A partnership would cut against TSMC’s usual model of building capacity on its own schedule for many customers. Analysts are split. Bernstein reckons Musk’s one-terawatt goal could cost $5T to $13T, close to the world’s entire chip capacity. Barclays points to Tesla’s thin record in manufacturing.
For TSMC, a Terafab-anchored campus would tie a large bet to one customer’s execution and finances.
