How fast can you build a fab?
Terafab is the largest chip factory anyone has announced. The fastest fab builders in the world never announce anything. This is both of them side by side, with the numbers each one has published.
Edition 1 · 27 September 2026
This page is a dated snapshot of a story that is still moving. It shows what was on the public record on 27 September 2026. We plan to update it every quarter, after Tesla reports its results, and each edition will say what changed.
The claims, in order.
Elon Musk announced Terafab in Austin on 21 March 2026: $25 billion, 2 nm chips, 100,000 wafer starts a month to begin with, and one million a month in the long run. Intel joined on 23 April and Terafab will use Intel's 14A process. In May a Texas filing put the prototype phases at up to $119 billion. In August, Tesla and SpaceX named the site: Grimes County, Texas, with a first phase reported at $16.8 billion.
SpaceX's own registration statement says: "Any specific projects undertaken pursuant to this framework will be subject to separate negotiations and agreements (including any development timelines, milestones and capital expenditures) and have not yet been determined."
More than 100 million square feet.
SpaceX's own update calls it more than 100 million square feet of manufacturing space. At 100 million, that is 9.29 million square metres: the amber square is that floor area laid out as one floor, about 3 km on each side. Inside it, real buildings from their mapped outlines, at the same scale. Pick one to fly to it.
A million wafers a month.
A fab's size is counted in wafer starts a month. Each stack is drawn to its number: amber is Terafab, blue is what exists or is forecast. Pick one to compare it with the goal.
The clock starts at groundbreaking.
Exyte, which designs and builds fabs, puts the average build at 19 months in Taiwan and 38 in the United States. Taiwan builds around the clock and gets permits in 6 to 13 months. In the US, permits and design take 14 to 20 months and building is done in daytime shifts.
TSMC's Kumamoto fab, built by Kajima, started construction in April 2022 and opened on 24 February 2024. In 2018 TSMC planned to move tools into Fab 18 about a year after breaking ground. Its first Arizona fab was planned for 2024 and reached volume production in early 2025.
The fastest builders publish nothing about speed.
Taiwan's fab builders are cleanroom and systems contractors such as L&K Engineering and United Integrated Services. They build for TSMC at home, and increasingly in Arizona, Japan and Europe. The press reports them by their order books. We found no build times published by any of them.
That is the contrast in this story. The record holders for speed publish their backlog, and the newcomer publishes its ambition.
The machine on the critical path.
A leading-edge fab cannot start without EUV scanners, and one company makes them. ASML recognized 48 EUV systems in its 2025 revenue. In July 2026 it said its 2026 capacity for low-NA EUV is "around 65", that it plans to add 30% for 2027, and that it is investigating another 30% for 2028.
27 September 2026.
These are the steps every fab has to go through. Each one is coloured by what the public record showed on this date. Amber: said by Tesla, SpaceX or Musk. Blue: in a filing or a partner's release. Grey: we found no report.
- Site: Grimes County named, 6 August 2026. Research fab groundbreaking in Austin, April 2026.
- Money: the S-1 says capital expenditure has not been determined.
- Process: Intel 14A. Intel's own release names it a strategic partner.
- People, power and water: at least 3,000 jobs and the Gibbons Creek Reservoir, both as stated.
- Tools and output: we found no reported tool order and no reported first wafer.
This is what is known, not a prediction. The next edition will set the new facts beside these ones.