South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. is considering an investment of up to $ 17 billion to build a chip factory in Arizona, Texas or New York, according to documents and people familiar with the company’s plans.
Samsung is exploring two locations in and around Phoenix, two locations near Austin and a large industrial campus in Genesee County in western New York, according to one person.
An important factor for Samsung to move forward with the expansion will be the availability of incentives from the US federal government to offset those offered by foreign countries and cheaper costs in other parts of the world, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The proposal comes at a time when the United States is allocating billions of dollars in financing to increase chip manufacturing in the United States and reduce its dependence on Taiwan, China and South Korea. New incentives for chip manufacturing have been included in the National Defense authorization approved in January, although the measures have not yet received funding.
Samsung’s proposed plant would employ up to 1,900 people and is expected to be operational in October 2022, according to correspondence read by The Wall Street Journal between Samsung and the municipal manager of Goodyear, Arizona, one of the locations the company is considering. As is customary in large industrial projects, Goodyear’s local authorities are offering a number of incentives, including tax incentives and infrastructure improvements to attract the plant, according to the letter.