Mission Critical Weekly
Cost insights on semiconductor fabs and data centers.
Week of October 5 – October 9, 2026
What's behind the moves
A split week. The six data center builders added about $317 billion in combined value while the four chipmakers lost about $279 billion. Amazon (+4.3%), Microsoft (+3.4%) and Alphabet (+2.4%) carried the data center side. Every semiconductor name on the list fell.
Intel led the decline (-12.3%), falling in four of five sessions. The week opened with reports that TSMC had held talks about helping run Elon Musk's Terafab chip complex in Grimes County, Texas, where Intel is the named manufacturing partner. CEO Lip-Bu Tan said on Oct 7 that Intel is staying on the project, but no contract terms have been disclosed. Intel then fell 5.3% on Oct 8 in a sector-wide selloff after a Financial Times report questioned OpenAI's revenue. Intel reports Q3 results on Oct 29.
TSMC (-4.1%) and Samsung (-5.1%) fell even as their numbers came in strong. TSMC reported September revenue of about $16.1 billion, up 54.6% from a year earlier. Samsung guided to Q3 operating profit of 107.4 trillion won (about $80 billion), the first Korean company to clear 100 trillion won in a quarter, driven by memory and HBM4 sales for Nvidia. Sales came in below consensus, and the stock slid into the Oct 9 Hangul Day holiday.
Micron (-4.3%) and CoreWeave (-8.4%) both fell hardest in the same Oct 8 AI-related selloff.
Why it matters for builders: the chip selloff reflects investor sentiment, not cancelled projects. Micron's construction-heavy fiscal 2027 capex plan and Samsung's planned second Taylor, Texas fab are unchanged so far. Watch for capex guidance when Intel and Samsung report full results on Oct 29.
Copper firmed to $6.66/lb on Oct 9, about 39% above a year ago. A strike at Antofagasta's Centinela mine in Chile is expected to cut output later this month, Chile's August production was the lowest since 2011, and buyers are front-loading imports ahead of possible US tariffs on unprocessed copper. All three point to continued pressure on wire, cable and busway pricing.
Transformers, clarified: large new units above 300 MVA are running 36 to 48 months. Refurbished and secondary units can be had in 12 to 18 months. For schedules that cannot absorb a four-year wait, the refurbished market is the realistic fallback.
Coming next week: BLS releases September producer prices on Oct 15, the first update to the construction inputs index since August.
Pipeline Watch: What's Breaking Ground
Data Center
AWS, Homer City, Pennsylvania. Amazon filed a preliminary land development plan for 36 two-story data center buildings of about 225,000 sq ft each, roughly 8 million sq ft across 1,100 acres in Indiana County. Power comes from the 4.5 GW natural gas plant under construction at the former Homer City coal site. Four phases, starting December 2026, with completion targeted for 2036. Data Center Dynamics
Google and Constellation, PJM nuclear uprates. A 20-year agreement for 890 MW of added capacity from uprates at 11 existing reactors across six sites in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, backed by $4.3 billion of Constellation investment. The first uprate is due in 2028, with about 7,200 temporary construction jobs. A separate 15-year deal covers another 2,700 MW. Construction Dive
Loudoun County, Virginia, tables its data center pause. Supervisors set aside a proposal to end grandfathering protections for pending data center projects in Data Center Alley after the county attorney warned it could cost about $60 million in litigation. No new date was set. FOX 5 DC
Semiconductors
Terafab, Grimes County, Texas. Intel says it remains the manufacturing partner on Musk's planned chip complex, after reports that TSMC discussed a role in running the site. SpaceX and Tesla have committed $16.8 billion to the first phase. Musk called the TSMC talks "just discussions." The Next Web
Samsung's memory windfall. Record Q3 operating profit gives Samsung more room to fund its second Taylor, Texas fab, which it has said it plans to break ground on by year-end. Korea Times