en.Wedoany.com Reported - Coherent has officially broken ground on the expansion of its semiconductor manufacturing campus in Sherman, Texas. The $650 million project aims to double the existing production space and create over 1,000 jobs.
The project plans to expand an existing 700,000-square-foot factory, originally built as a silicon wafer fab by Texas Instruments, later acquired by Finisar in 2017, and ultimately coming under Coherent after a merger with II-VI. The expansion includes constructing a new manufacturing building equipped with advanced cleanroom capacity and wafer fabrication equipment.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, signed a steel beam that will be used in the new wafer fab. He was joined at the event by Coherent CEO Jim Anderson, Sherman Mayor Shawn Temann, and Adriana Cruz, Executive Director of the Texas Economic Development and Tourism Office. Jim stated at the event that the day marked a significant milestone not only for Coherent but also for the future of U.S. manufacturing and artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The project has received $50 million in direct funding support from the CHIPS and Science Act, confirmed through a letter of intent with the U.S. Department of Commerce. This follows approximately $20 million in early support from the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund and the Sherman Economic Development Corporation.
Additionally, NVIDIA invested $2 billion in Coherent in March 2026 to support research and development, future manufacturing capacity, and domestic U.S. production, along with committing billions of dollars in purchase orders for advanced laser and optical networking products. Upon completion, the expanded Sherman campus is expected to provide over 1,000 jobs in total, including more than 550 direct advanced manufacturing, engineering, and technical positions. Coherent plans to quadruple wafer output at the site within 12 months of the expansion coming online.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Jensen Huang stated that Coherent is a world-class company whose work is crucial for future development, the future of AI, and the reindustrialization of America. The Sherman campus is located in a city of approximately 45,000 people, about an hour north of Dallas, a region that has become a focal point for U.S. semiconductor investment. Huang referred to the area as the "Silicon Prairie."
The factory operates what Coherent calls the world's first and highest-volume six-inch indium phosphide (InP) manufacturing platform, producing lasers, optical components, and compound semiconductors for AI data center infrastructure. The expansion will add cleanroom space and manufacturing capabilities to the existing 700,000 square feet, doubling the manufacturing production space and enhancing the site's ability to produce optical components that connect chips, servers, and data centers.
The Sherman campus already supplies components for NVIDIA's AI infrastructure stack, and the two companies have collaborated for over two decades. Jim stated that AI relies on computing to run, but scales through connectivity, and Sherman is where that connectivity is being built.
NVIDIA's investment in the Sherman expansion reflects its broader commitment to building AI infrastructure in the U.S. through industry partnerships, totaling $500 billion, and constructing new sites in Arizona and Texas. As AI systems scale up, demand arises for optical interconnects that copper cables cannot meet over large data center distances, significantly deepening the relationship between Coherent and NVIDIA. Jensen Huang stated that AI factories are the infrastructure for a new industrial revolution, and connecting millions of GPUs into a thinking machine requires optical technology built for scale, speed, and energy efficiency. Coherent's expanded indium phosphide manufacturing operations in Texas will help strengthen the U.S. supply chain for the AI infrastructure being built globally at a rapid pace.
