SpaceX drops first look of Terafab facility

GRIMES COUNTY, Texas (KBTX) - SpaceX has released a video showing what the massive Terafab project just approved in Grimes County could look like.

In a post on X Thursday morning, a video shows what the massive building and campus could look like in the area near Gibbons Creek. The project will cost more than $16.8 billion.

SpaceX officially confirmed the project Wednesday after a Q&A session at Grimes County Commissioners Court. Gov. Greg Abbott sent out a press release Thursday confirming the project.

RELATED: SpaceX confirms Terefab project is a done deal as reps meet face-to-face with Grimes County residents

The video rendering shows the 2.5-mile-long building where chip manufacturing is set to take place. SpaceX said Terafab will bring 3,000 permanent jobs to the facility, ranging from food service and janitorial work to advanced semiconductor fabrication engineering.

Governor Greg Abbott formally announced the project Thursday, extending a $30 million Texas Enterprise Fund grant to SpaceX and calling Terafab “first of its kind.” Abbott said the facility will accelerate chip production in Texas at an unprecedented scale and create economic opportunity for generations of Texans. You can find our full coverage of that announcement here.

To better understand what it will actually take to turn that rendering into reality, KBTX spoke with Texas A&M Engineering Project Management Director and Professor Ivan Damnjanovic.

“Most of the people get fascinated by the size. For me, what stands out is this complexity and interaction between the infrastructure, utilities, and the production, even material handling facilities on site. That is something that needs to be addressed as a project manager,” Damnjanovic said.

SpaceX has said construction could begin within months. Damnjanovic says that is possible, but warns that starting early on a project this size comes with real risk.

“The bigger the projects are, the exponential increase in variability is. And out of these variabilities, things can happen. We don’t necessarily know exactly what’s going to happen,” Damnjanovic said.

Ultimately, Damnjanovic says the question for the Brazos Valley isn’t whether Terafab can be built, but whether the region is organized to handle it.

“I think anything that you set your mind to, you can handle,” he said. “The question is often not whether you can handle it or not, but how do you organize yourself to handle such projects?”