ASML and other suppliers expedite shipments to Musk's Terafab facility

Shipments pulled forward

Speaking on SpaceX's Q3 2026 earnings call broadcast on X on October 20, Elon Musk said ASML and other critical semiconductor equipment suppliers have accelerated deliveries for the Terafab facility, the joint Tesla-SpaceX project in Texas.

Musk said the project targets volume chip production at its primary facility in Q3 or Q4 2028. He acknowledged the dates are "very aggressive" and carry big error bars. SpaceX plans to make its first experimental test chip at its research fab in Austin around Q2 2027.

Which equipment is coming

ASML is the world's sole commercial supplier of the EUV lithography systems, priced at roughly $400 million each, needed for high-volume leading-edge production. Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA and Japan's Tokyo Electron will supply front-end processing, metrology and process control tools. Tesla and SpaceX are also in talks with about 10 South Korean equipment makers, including Hanmi Semiconductor and HPSP.

Terafab will use Intel's 14A manufacturing node. Intel officially joined the venture in April 2026 to help co-develop silicon fabrication technology.

AI compute targets

Musk said his AI companies should have 2.5 to 3 gigawatts of computing capacity by the end of 2026, and he expects to add 10 GW in 2027 for a total of 13 GW. To get there, SpaceX and xAI are procuring NVIDIA's next-generation Vera Rubin architecture and plan a 440,000-GPU training cluster online by the end of Q2 2027.

Terafab aims to produce 1 terawatt of AI computing power per year, combining logic, memory and advanced packaging under one roof.