Exclusive: Taylor plots high-tech cluster as Samsung’s $37B chip fab nears completion

Home > Business > Industry

Exclusive: Taylor plots high-tech cluster as Samsung’s $37B chip fab nears completion

Published: 27 Aug. 2025, 07:00

LEE JAE-LIM
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

The flags of Samsung, Texas, Korea and the United States hang in front of the Samsung semiconductor chip plant's construction site in Taylor, Texas, on Jan. 2, 2024. [EPA/YONHAP]

The city government of Taylor, Texas, is gearing up to create an industrial cluster and data center around Samsung Electronics’ $37 billion semiconductor plant, betting that the factory’s scheduled completion in 2026 will turn the small town into a key Texas powerhouse.

The initiative comes amid heightened expectations regarding the Samsung plant's growth potential, following its deal to supply Tesla as a major foundry customer. West of the campus, U.S. data center operator Blueprint Data Centers is constructing a $1 billion, 30-megawatt facility.

According to an Aug. 12 Planning and Zoning Commission document, a 47.634-acre tract of land adjacent to Samsung’s Taylor site has been earmarked as a Samsung-linked Employment Center.

The Employment Center, a Taylor-specific zoning category, is designed to attract large employers across commercial and industrial sectors, including manufacturers and suppliers, to spur job creation and cultivate local talent. Marking the property as such would enable the city to streamline permitting and offer additional support for incoming employers. The Aug. 12 filing specifies that the land uses will be “associated with Samsung or other regional high-tech businesses.”

An industrial cluster, outlined in red, that Taylor City plans to designate adjacent to Samsung’s $37 billion chip plant [TAYLOR CITY OFFICE]

That opens the door for Samsung’s equipment suppliers to set up shop there. Separately, Korean chemical supplier Soulbrain is investing $175 million through January 2029 to build a facility at the Taylor plant’s doorstep to produce electronic-grade phosphoric acid for Samsung’s chipmaking. The company plans to invest an additional $400 million by January 2033.

“We do not purport to design areas specifically for use by Samsung suppliers, but we are always excited to welcome and work with the end users that Samsung is bringing to the region,” a Taylor city spokesperson told the Korea JoongAng Daily via email.

But the property is not yet officially designated as an industrial hub. Still known as Forterra Business Park — a brownfield industrial tract — it is currently listed for sale on commercial real estate platforms. Taylor is seeking to annex the land, located in its Extra Territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ), into the city proper to extend utilities and services.

Annexation, however, requires a formal request from the property owner.

“There is no strict timeline that the developer must follow,” the city spokesperson said. “For this reason, we cannot speculate how long it will be until the property is annexed and zoned as an Employment Center.”

Public hearings and City Council action are slated for Thursday and Sept. 11. Real estate listings on platforms such as Crexi describe the parcel as “an industrial site at Samsung’s front door.”

“The Employment Center Plan is a required step in the development process for a commercial and industrial site on the subject property,” the city document states. “The plan allows the subject property to consist of commercial and industrial development, closer to U.S. Highway 79 and Samsung and RCR industrial development.”

A screen capture from U.S. real estate platform Crexi describing Forterra Business Park as “an industrial site at Samsung’s front door.” [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Taylor is wagering heavily on the arrival of Samsung’s advanced fab, with hope swelling after Samsung inked a $16.5 billion deal with Tesla to produce the automaker’s AI6 chips at the Texas facility. The chips will power a wide range of applications, from autonomous vehicles and robotics to supercomputing.

The deal offered a silver lining for the fab’s repeatedly delayed schedule, with mass production now pushed back from 2024 to 2026 amid a global chip glut. In June, the city pressed Samsung to commit to finishing 7 million square feet of facilities by 2028 and approved a scaled-back $9 million incentive package, contingent on the company meeting equipment installation thresholds by the end of 2026.

City projections suggest that Samsung’s presence could lift Taylor’s population by 30 to 40 percent over the next decade, driven by supplier in-migration and job creation — including 2,000 high-tech positions directly from the fab.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [[email protected]]