Musk considers College Station for Terafab facility

Kind: captions Language: en Elon Musk appears to be taking plans for his Terafab chip-making plant beyond Austin and into Aggieland. What will be made inside could have the power to revolutionize the world as we know it. KXAN's Tom Miller talked with Justin Sayers from the Austin Business Journal about what he's learned. First things first, we've heard this term Terafab and Terafab factory. What is that and what is that supposed to produce? >> So, yeah, over a month ago, Elon announced this initiative that's he's billing as the biggest chip-making operation in the world and it's going to be starting with a little fabrication plant on the Tesla site. But, he's been saying that they've been looking for a larger site with thousands of acres and ample power to put that permanently. So, that's what we've been waiting for. And you reported yesterday that it looks like this site is going to be going outside College Station in Grimes County. Why there? Yeah, so the important thing, he did go on Twitter and say this is one of many sites under consideration. So, nothing official yet. We don't know publicly any of the other ones that he's considering yet. But, what he has planned there, you know, would require a lot of water and power and talent. That has proximity to Texas A&M, which is known for engineering and has access to water and power. >> How big of an investment could this be for our state and is little Grimes County prepared for this? Yeah, that's a great question. But, to start with the investment, uh the numbers that were thrown around initially was 25 billion. When those documents came out, they said eventually it could be an 119 billion dollar investment starting with a 55 billion dollar first phase. Obviously, when you put this into a pretty rural county, you know, there's infrastructure questions, there's water questions, there's power questions. So, you know, we'll see how the company ends up answering those and and how neighbors, you know, feel about that. >> Justin Sayers with the Austin Business Journal, thanks for talking with me. Yeah, thank you so much for having me.