US 79 Deep-Tech Corridor

Overview

Samsung Taylor and Terafab Bracket a Chip Corridor

US 79 runs east from I-35 in Round Rock through Hutto, Taylor, Thrall, Thorndale, Rockdale and Milano to Hearne. SH 6 carries the corridor south from Hearne to Bryan-College Station, and SH 30 runs east from College Station to the Gibbons Creek Reservoir in Grimes County. Union Pacific track runs alongside US 79 through Taylor, Rockdale and Hearne.

Samsung Taylor is the built anchor: a second-generation 2 nm (SF2P) foundry backed by Samsung's $37B Texas commitment and a $4.745B federal CHIPS Act award. Tesla signed a $16.5B contract in July 2025 for AI6 chips at Taylor. Korea JoongAng Daily reported in March 2026 that volume production moved to early 2027, with the plant ready for pilot production by the end of 2026.

At the east end, SpaceX's Terafab is under construction on the former Gibbons Creek coal plant site off SH 30. SpaceX's May 2026 filing with Grimes County listed $55B for the first phase and up to $119B for all phases. Musk has said Terafab will use Intel's 14A process for logic, memory and advanced packaging. Grimes County approved a 10-year, 100% county tax abatement (2027-2036) on June 2, 2026, with minimums of $5B invested by 2030 and 1,800 jobs by 2035.

Blue Origin picked Hutto Crossing on October 8, 2026 for a $555M, 1.3-million-square-foot satellite manufacturing campus with more than 2,000 jobs.

US export controls keep China's SMIC and Huawei from the ASML EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography tools that 2 nm production at Taylor and 14A production at Terafab require; China's most advanced chips are made at 7 nm and 5 nm-class nodes on older DUV (deep ultraviolet) tools.

Anchors

Fabs, Supplier Parks and a Megasite From Hutto to Gibbons Creek

Rail, Power, Water

Private Rail, On-Site Gas and Reservoir Water Serve the East End

Sandow Lakes has a private intermodal yard with seven miles of track tied to the Union Pacific line. At RCR Taylor, Tesla uses the park's auto ramp to ship cars built at Giga Texas.

Sandow Lakes Energy Co. plans a 1,200 MW combined-cycle gas plant near Rockdale with two Siemens Energy SGT6-9000HL turbines, announced in February 2024 for power by 2028. Riot Platforms and Bitdeer run bitcoin mining sites on the former Alcoa power infrastructure at Rockdale. Terafab will run on its own natural gas plants, off the ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) grid. In Hutto, Skybox cannot confirm grid power for Project Sequel before 2028 under ERCOT's large-load review and the SB 6 (2025) interconnection rules; see ERCOT large-load interconnection.

Terafab cannot use groundwater under its county agreement and will draw recycled surface water from Gibbons Creek Reservoir. Grimes County says the September 21, 2026 TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) pause on data center permits does not apply because Terafab is classed as a chip plant; the state has not confirmed. Regional supply is covered on Texas water supply stress.

Connections

Brazos Valley Research and the Hutto-Taylor Data Center Overlap

Texas A&M has put about $1.5B into its 3,300-acre RELLIS campus. The 80,000-square-foot Semiconductor Institute draws on a $226.4M Texas CHIPS Act allocation and partnerships with Samsung, Tokyo Electron America and Cadence. Substrate has an MOU for a possible fab at RELLIS, pending financing and incentives. The Cyclotron Institute and AggieFab complete the cluster on the Brazos Valley semiconductor page.

The Georgetown-Hutto-Taylor data center corridor covers the same Hutto-Taylor stretch for data centers: Skybox, Blueprint, Colovore, Project Comal and Project Mustang. US 79 meets the SH 130 corridor at Hutto and the Austin-Waco corridor at Round Rock.

Related coverage

Related Coverage

• Samsung Taylor Fab
• Terafab Grimes County
• Georgetown-Hutto-Taylor Corridor
• Sandow Lakes Xebec Megasite
• Brazos Valley Semiconductor Concentration
• Blue Origin Hutto