Let’s have some fun with AI Front Run Elon

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
1

I plugged this prompt into Claude. The idea being where would I buy my retirement home to be in the thick of things. I wouldn’t mind living near Corpus Christi or even San Antonio. I might even consider Brownsville. Although East Texas is where I grew up.

Prompt: Elon is going to build a terrafab to build AI chips. Let’s try to front run where he will build it.
Use these parameters
1000 plus acres
100,000 plus permanent employees eventually.
Water
Power
Elon’s Elonville. Draw a line from Austin to Brownsville to Corpus Christi back to Austin. Use a fat marker so not exactly in that area.
Essentially he needs a big piece of land that can in the future have enough resources in the area to support a decent sized city. 400,000 to 1.2 million people.

Claude’s response,

Here’s the full intelligence brief and interactive map. Key findings:
What we know as of today: Terafab was officially announced March 21, 2026. The full-scale facility has no confirmed location yet — it’s described as “yet to be determined.” Musk has confirmed the full-scale Terafab requires thousands of acres and over 10 gigawatts of power, and that it “couldn’t possibly fit on the GigaTexas campus.”
The five candidates I’ve mapped inside your triangle zone, ranked:
:green_circle: SITE-01 — Atascosa/Frio County (93/100) — TOP PICK. The sweet spot. Massive flat ranch land available in bulk at low $/acre, ~70 miles south of San Antonio’s 2.5M labor pool, direct ERCOT grid access, Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer underneath, and squarely centered in your Elonville zone. I-35 freight corridor is a massive logistics plus. This is where I’d look first.
:blue_circle: SITE-02 — Live Oak/McMullen County (88/100). Geographic midpoint between SA and Corpus on the Elonville axis. The Nueces River solves water. Oil & gas land culture means large block sales are common. Weakness: you’d be building Elonville literally from scratch — no existing workforce base.
:yellow_circle: SITE-03 — Bee/Refugio County (81/100). Beeville’s NAS auxiliary airspace + 45 miles to the Corpus port (critical for importing 90-ton EUV machines by ship) is a real differentiator.
:orange_circle:/:red_circle: Sites 04–05 have the Musk narrative (Laredo trade corridor, Starbase adjacency near McAllen) but serious water scarcity and weak grid infrastructure knock them down.
The wildcard: Water may be the bigger long-term concern over electricity — a midsized data center alone uses roughly 300,000 gallons per day, about the equivalent of 1,000 homes. A city-scale Terafab supporting 400K–1.2M people would dwarf that. Aquifer access is the hidden variable that may ultimately determine the winner.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

A image that shows the geography.

https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/e3d67cb1-695d-4e42-8b83-d9d48ce0a66d

Claude has ways of saving a PDF, but I was unable to figure out how to use it on this Iphone.

My belief is that the area near Corpus Christi would be the site. Far enough inland to be clear if hurricanes, enough water and close enough to the coast for shipping and it could be a decent place to live. While the weather is hot, it is not much worse than Austin. The hill country around Austin is prettier, but there are serious water and land problems there. The area not mentioned was land between Austin and Houston. Not bad land and it generally tends to have more water, and it would have more access to skilled labor.

The outside of Corpus Christi area would essentially be a new city, that might give some people pause. I doubt it would stop Elon.

Cheers
Qazulight

6 Likes
2

That’s nothing! A single 18-hold golf course in Texas can use over 300,000 gallons a day. And that’s just a game for fun.

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I think at the end of the build out, which would probably take 20 years would be 30 to 50 fabs. Not data centers. Assuming that data centers and fabs use the same amount of water (absolutely no reason to believe this but I am doing this off a phone late at night) then we are looking at 10,000,000 gallons a day, plus all the water needed for a 1.2 million person city.

I think this would preclude Austin or San Antonio proper. Even the Corpus Christi area would end up needing desalination.

So either the size of what Elon is talking about is way over blown or he may have to move closer to East Texas where there is more water. However, East Texas does not have a lot of 1000 plus acre tracks available.

Cheers
Qazulight

4

Do you understand how technically challenging it is to fabricate the highest-end chips, 2nm ?

Before planning your retirement home, please ask AI this important feasibility question for a company with zero institutional experience in actual chip manufacturing, including cutting-edge chips.

Maybe AI suggests they partner with a capable company, if any such company would partner?

I suppose everyone has a price?

Maybe in 20 years they could be making what is cutting edge today?

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5

This. Right there. There is ZERO WAY Musk can actually do this. This guy is the world’s richest example of Dunning-Kruger effect.

8 Likes
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If he can get the node technology the rest he can buy.

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7

How about partnered with Intel?

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It’s more than that, design the chips, and use Intels foundries.

You’re on target.

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I don’t think it matters whether he succeeds or not. If he is going to build 1000 acre plant, he will be building something almost 2 square miles or 43,000,000 square feet. (I think that math is right) 43,000 square feet per acre time 1000 acres) he will need an army of construction worker working for years just to get the frame built.

Cheers
Qazulight

2 Likes
10

I think the entire project might end up be vaporware - or developed at a much smaller scale. They already have the capacity to produce more vehicles than they can sell. They just shut down two entire models - thus freeing up that supply of chips, and robots, if they are ever viable, are unlikely to be sold at at a rate much higher than their vehicle sales (and I think that is being generous).

Hawkwin

Bookmarked

3 Likes
11

Likely.

But if he does proceed. The site location will be determined by land, water and labor. It will take a lot and the balance is difficult because where there is a lot of labor, the land is hard to come by. Where there is a lot of land, the labor and water are hard to come by.

At least in Elonville. That area with Austin at the northwest corner. Brownsville at the South corner and Corpus Christi at the northeast corner.

Get outside of that and there is land labor and water near Houston. To some extent there is land and labor in Dallas, but water might be an issue.

Sometimes I think Indiana or Ohio would be a better place. More labor, more water and enough land. But I think the entire State Government would have to be bought, why buy another when you already have one?

Cheers
Qazulight

3 Likes
12

Heh, you must not be a local? :stuck_out_tongue:

From Google Gemini:

Key Data Center Developments in Indiana (2025-2026):

  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) - New Carlisle & Northern IN: A massive 1,200-acre, $11 billion+ “Project Rainier” is operational in St. Joseph County, powering AI with 30 planned buildings.

  • Meta (Facebook) - Lebanon: A $10 billion, 4-million-square-foot campus is under construction on a 1-gigawatt site, expected to come online in late 2027 or early 2028.

  • Metrobloks - Indianapolis: A $500 million, 135-megawatt data center was approved for the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood in April 2026.

  • Microsoft - La Porte: A $1 billion project is planned for the Radius Industrial Park.

  • Digital Crossroad - Hammond: A 77-acre campus situated at the former State Line Generating Plant site.

  • Amazon/Other Projects: Additional developments are occurring in Portage and Hobart.

Why Indiana?

  • Incentives: 2019 legislation provides tax exemptions on equipment for qualifying data centers.
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13

I am beginning to like Indiana. Never even thought about it until I went to Indianapolis for the eclipse a couple of years ago.

Ever since I got over my cold phobia in Fargo, the upper midwest has been one of my favorite spots. Granddaughter in Chicago and grandson in Des Moines.

Still have a lot of ties to Texas though. So, right now East Texas piney woods is on the table for retirement. Still, I could be talked into going to Corpus Christi.

Cheers
Qazulight

1 Like
14

I have a niece in Chicago and a nephew in the Madison area. Another nephew in Nashville. It is a great country.

The niece seems to be coming back to Cambridge for Harvard Law School. She just interviewed at Harvard, U Chicago, and Yale. She wants to be home.

The nephew in Madison, wants to get a master’s, so he might be back in Boston soon.

The other nephew seems to be getting serious with a woman from CT down in Nashville.

1 Like