Micron breaks ground on $100B New York DRAM megafab

"Micron broke snowy winter ground in New York on Friday to begin building a chip fab that promises to bring up to 50,000 jobs and much-needed computer memory production to US shores, as the AI boom continues to push memory prices up. The company's stock surged on the news that shovels had been put to work on the facility first announced in 2022, which had been bedeviled by environmental delays."

"The megafab - which would displace 500 acres of woods and wetlands, as well as two endangered species of bats - is scheduled to begin producing DRAM chips by 2030. Micron said it will create 1,216 acres of off-site bat habitat including maternity roosts to mitigate the potential damage its fab will cause to the Indiana and northern long-eared bat populations, as well as 628 acres of land to offset impacts to the sedge wren, short-eared owl, and northern harrier bird populations."

Micron began construction of a $100 billion megafab in Clay, New York, to produce DRAM chips and expand US memory manufacturing. The site covers 1,377 acres and will eventually host four fabs spanning roughly 1.2 million square feet each across 20 years. The first two fabs are expected to begin production by 2030, with later fabs completed by 2041. Micron projects 9,000 direct fab jobs and up to 50,000 total jobs including suppliers and contractors over two decades. The build will displace 500 acres of woods and wetlands and affect endangered bats and bird species, and Micron plans off-site habitat and land offsets to mitigate impacts. Global memory prices may rise as AI-driven demand shifts production toward higher-value infrastructure chips.

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