Texas Instruments will invest $11B in Utah expansion

Texas Instruments plans to spend $11 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in Lehi. Gov. Spencer Cox called it a “huge day for Utah” and the largest economic investment in state history.

The Dallas-based company makes semiconductor chips and sells them to other companies to be used in almost everything from personal electronics to cars.

Lehi is already home to one Texas Instruments’ semiconductor wafer fabrication plant that has been around for about 14 months. This expansion will build a second plant. Haviv Ilan, the tech company’s incoming president and CEO, said about 1,100 people are employed currently in Utah and the expansion will add another 800 new jobs. Wages would average about $110,000.

“The new fab [fabrication plant] will produce tens of millions of analog and embedded processing chips every single day that will be used in electronics everywhere,” IIan said.

With President Joe Biden signing into law the CHIPS and Science Act last summer, Ilan said it’s the perfect time to expand manufacturing. The goal of the act is to increase and incentivize semiconductor chip production in the U.S. because most chips are currently being produced in East Asia, according to the White House.

Illan said Texas Instruments had other options for, but chose Lehi because of its “access to skilled talent, robust existing infrastructure and strong community partners.”

There are other incentives for the company as well.

State leaders offered Texas Instruments a tax credit worth up to 30% of new state taxes that the company will pay over the next 20 years. The Economic Development Tax Increment Finance tax credit was created by the Legislature in 2005 to incentivize businesses to choose Utah. Texas Instruments must meet certain requirements, like paying employees above a certain amount, in order to receive part of the full credit each year.

“This is not something that is going to benefit us for a year or two. This is something that is going to benefit us for generations,” Cox said.

As a part of the deal, Texas Instruments will also give $9 million to the Alpine School District to “improve student opportunities and outcomes,” according to the company.

It takes a lot of water to produce semiconductors, which caused problems in Taiwan and concerns in Arizona.

Cox is confident that Utah, which is still battling drought and trying to save the drying Great Salt Lake, has enough water to expand semiconductor manufacturing in Lehi. He said there’s been lots of discussion about water use and Texas Instruments is designing its facility to use less water and to find ways of reusing water.

“The water is not being lost. And we feel very good about the projections around water usage and the existing water in the system right now.”

When asked about water consumption, Cox said he did not have the water usage estimates with him.

Even looking years into the future, the governor said the state will have enough water, especially because of what the Legislature is doing concerning the state’s water crisis and because of how much Utahns have conserved over the last two years.

Ryan Starks, executive director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, said this project had the support of the Utah Water Conservancy District.

U.S. Rep. Burgess Owens, who voted against the CHIPS and Science Act along with the rest of the state’s Republican congressmen, attended the announcement at the Utah State Capitol. Sen. Mitt Romney, a yes vote in the Senate, applauded the announcement in a statement saying it “will strengthen our country’s manufacturing capabilities and help break U.S. dependence on China for microchips.”