TSMC's $265 Billion Arizona Gigafab: Three Fabs You Can See, Seven on Paper

• TSMC's north Phoenix campus has grown from a $12 billion, single-fab announcement in May 2020 to $265 billion and ten planned fabs as of July 16, 2026.
• Sentinel-2 imagery caught Fab 2 under construction in February 2022, roughly ten months before TSMC announced it in December 2022, and the CHIPS-Act environmental assessment later confirmed the February 2022 construction start.
• Execution on the first three fabs is real: Fab 1 has been in volume production since late 2024 and is ramping from about 10,000 toward 30,000 wafers per month, Fab 2's building is complete with equipment moving in through September 2026, and Fab 3 is being roofed.
• Beyond the first three fabs, nothing is going up: Fabs 4 and 6 show early clearing and groundwork but remain pads, Fab 5 shows no activity, and Fabs 7 through 10 were announced on July 16, 2026 with their construction tied to customer demand.
• TSMC has banked 902 acres south of the original 1,129-acre site for about $197 million, and Chairman C.C. Wei ties the pace of the next fabs to "the market situation and our customers' demand."

In May 2020, TSMC announced its Arizona project as a $12 billion, single-fab plan: 5-nanometer technology, 20,000 wafers per month, over 1,600 direct jobs, construction from 2021 and production in 2024. Six years and four escalations later, the same north Phoenix campus carries a $265 billion announced total and ten planned fabs, a program TSMC has called the largest single foreign direct investment in U.S. history.

Aterio has tracked the campus building by building since ground broke, and Sentinel-2 satellites have recorded it from orbit since January 2021. Both records agree, and they split the announcement cleanly in two: three fabs you can see, one producing, one being tooled, one being roofed, and seven that are dirt or paper. As of mid-July 2026, exactly one of the ten announced fabs is producing chips.

Figure: TSMC Arizona's site construction plan from the CHIPS-Act Draft Environmental Assessment (Figure 2-1): the facility boundary in red, buildings in purple, fabs labeled F21P1 through F21P3, and a parking area slated for solar panels. Source: Draft Environmental Assessment for TSMC AZ, NIST, May 2024, page 24.

Five announcements, one direction

The number has never moved down. On December 6, 2022, TSMC announced a second fab and took the total to roughly $40 billion, with the first fab targeting N4 production in 2024, the second 3nm in 2026, and combined output of more than 600,000 wafers per year. On April 8, 2024, a third fab took it past $65 billion, backed by up to $6.6 billion in direct CHIPS Act funding and up to $5 billion in proposed loans. On March 3, 2025, TSMC and the White House announced an additional $100 billion for three more fabs, advanced packaging and an R&D center, bringing the total to $165 billion. And on July 16, 2026, Chairman C.C. Wei announced another $100 billion at the company's Q2 earnings call: four more fabs, additional advanced packaging, and a target of 2-nanometer and more advanced processes, for a $265 billion program. TSMC also raised its 2026 capital budget to $60-64 billion.

What the ground shows

The campus sits on a 1,129-acre site TSMC purchased on December 9, 2020, undeveloped desert that had been rezoned only weeks earlier. The Sentinel-2 record starts in January 2021 with empty ground and ends in mid-July 2026 with a working semiconductor city.

Figure: TSMC Arizona campus construction timelapse, January 2021 to mid-July 2026. Captured via Sentinel-2 satellite, sourced through Copernicus; image analysis by Aterio. Source: TSMC, April 2024 expansion announcement.

Figure: The same campus at four moments, May 2021 to July 2026, with the six delineated fab footprints outlined. By October 2022 Fab 1 is nearly complete and Fab 2 is under construction, two months before TSMC announced the second fab; by July 2026 Fabs 1 and 2 are complete, Fab 3 is being roofed, Fabs 4 and 6 have begun clearing, and Fab 5 is still bare. Sourced through Planet; image analysis and fab annotations by Aterio. Source: Aterio Industrial Developments dataset.

Fab 1 broke ground in April 2021, and Aterio tracked its building shell as complete by January 2023. TSMC says the fab has been in volume production since late 2024, running 4nm and 5nm FinFET processes at about 10,000 wafers per month and ramping toward 30,000.

Fab 2 is the reason to watch dirt instead of press releases. The CHIPS-Act Draft Environmental Assessment states that "Construction of the Phase 2 building began in February 2022." TSMC announced the fab on December 6, 2022, roughly ten months after the ground started moving. The building is now complete, roofing and cooling equipment were finished by May 2026, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment moves in between July and September 2026. TSMC's stated volume-production date for the 3nm fab is 2028, two years later than the 2026 target it carried when the fab was announced.

Fab 3 began vertical construction in the second half of 2025. By May 2026 the western half of the roof was complete with concrete work continuing on the east, and as of July 14, 2026 roof installation is still progressing. TSMC's public plan has the third fab producing at 2nm or better by the end of the decade, with a timeline the assessment says "may shift subject to demand, market conditions, supply chain availability, and funding."

The other seven fabs

Past Fab 3, the picture thins out. Some early site clearing and groundwork are visible around Fabs 4 and 6, but they still remain pads without foundational concrete or vertical construction. Fab 5, in early planning since at least January 2026, shows no activity yet, and Fabs 7 through 10, announced on July 16, 2026, have no ground broken, their construction tied to customer demand.

TSMC has the room to build all ten. It bought 902 acres directly south of the existing site for about $197 million at a January 2026 state land auction, and the first three fabs prove the company builds what it announces here. But as Wei put it, "The progress or the schedule, most of the time, depends on the market situation and our customers' demand." The commitment is real; the calendar is not.

The six-year record

Key project parameters:

• Operator: TSMC Arizona Corporation, north Phoenix (Maricopa County), along Loop 303 at the campus TSMC brands its Arizona gigafab cluster.
• Site: 1,129 acres purchased December 9, 2020, plus 902 acres directly south acquired for about $197 million at a January 2026 state land auction for future expansion.
• Investment: $265 billion announced as of July 16, 2026, up from $12 billion in May 2020.
• Fabs: 10 announced. Fab 1 producing (4nm/5nm); Fab 2 complete, equipment move-in July-September 2026 (3nm); Fab 3 roofing; Fabs 4 and 6 early clearing/groundwork (still pads); Fab 5 no activity; Fabs 7-10 announced July 2026.
• Incentives: up to $6.6 billion in direct CHIPS Act funding plus up to $5 billion in proposed loans.

Source: TSMC's May 2020, December 2022, April 2024 and March 2025 announcements; the White House; the Draft Environmental Assessment for TSMC AZ; Focus Taiwan; and the Aterio U.S. Data Center dataset.

Built out, this would be the largest semiconductor manufacturing campus in the United States in Aterio's tracking, roughly 2,000 acres of fabs with a master-planned community, Halo Vista, rising around it.

Bottom line

TSMC's Arizona record cuts both ways, and both edges are sharp. The execution is real: three fabs built or building in five years on ground that was empty desert in January 2021, one of them already shipping advanced-node wafers, another being tooled right now. The gap is real too: seven of the ten announced fabs have no vertical construction yet, and the satellite record does not show nearly as much building as the $265 billion headline implies. The company's own history says the announcements eventually become buildings, but on TSMC's clock, not the press release's: Fab 2 was announced with 2026 production, and its volume date now reads 2028.

What to watch: whether Fabs 4 and 6's pads turn into vertical construction, the first real sign of the next wave; first ground at Fab 5; and permits and dirt for Fabs 7-10. Aterio ran the same satellite-first read on Micron's $100 billion megafab in Clay, New York and on Microsoft's restart of three paused North Carolina campuses: the press release tells you the plan, the dirt tells you the schedule. In Phoenix, the dirt says three fabs, and counting.

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