Intel joins Musk’s Terafab as foundry partner in $25B chip megaproject

In short: Intel has signed on as the primary foundry partner for Elon Musk’s Terafab, a $25 billion joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI targeting a terawatt of AI compute per year, handing the struggling chip giant the marquee customer it has been searching for since pivoting to a foundry-first strategy.

On 7 April 2026, Intel announced it is joining the Terafab project, becoming the foundry partner for the most ambitious semiconductor facility ever proposed in the United States. The announcement came two weeks after Musk first unveiled Terafab at the North Campus of Giga Texas in Austin, a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI that claims it will produce one terawatt of AI compute every year. Intel’s role is to contribute its most advanced process node, packaging expertise, and manufacturing scale to make that claim real. For Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan, who has spent ...