Today, the international spotlight is trained on the small Central Texas town of Taylor. Samsung is expected to announce it has selected Taylor as the new site of its $17 billion chip-making facility, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
The South Korea-based company already has a presence in Central Texas with a factory in Northeast Austin. Its new Taylor plant is expected to create around 1,800 jobs and open by the end of 2024.
The WSJ also reports that technology giant will receive “property-tax breaks of up to 92.5 percent for the first 10 years, with the write-offs gradually declining over the next several decades,” according to internal Samsung documents.
Samsung’s selection isn’t a total surprise; the company has been courted by both Austin and Williamson County (where Taylor is located) for the past year. Its selection of Taylor, however, will undoubtedly mean a cultural shift for the quaint town, which has a population of less than 20,000, according to the most recent Census data.
Located about 30 miles northeast of downtown Austin, Taylor has not been immune to the rising costs that have plagued the Capital City region in recent years. For example, in October 2021, the median home price in Williamson County was $430,000. Four years ago, in October 2017, that median price was just $268,000, according to data from the Austin Board of Realtors.
Though it’s unclear exactly when the news will be confirmed, Gov. Greg Abbott is scheduled to make an “economic announcement” on Tuesday at 5 p.m. As the WSJ notes, Samsung’s newest U.S. factory comes amid a push by the Biden administration to increase the country’s semiconductor production, an important asset in the world’s increasingly frenzied technology race.
