Coherent Breaks Ground on Expanded Texas Facility with $50M CHIPS Act Grant to Scale AI Optical Components

Coherent has broken ground on an expanded manufacturing facility in Sherman, Texas, backed by a $50 million CHIPS Act grant and an additional ~$17 million in earlier state and local support. The company produces the lasers, optical components, and indium phosphide (InP) compound semiconductors that form the optical backbone of AI infrastructure — connecting chips, servers, and data centers at the speed of light. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Coherent CEO Jim Anderson attended the ceremony alongside Texas officials.

The expansion scales production at what Coherent describes as the world's first 6-inch indium phosphide fab, a facility critical to high-speed data-center interconnects. Huang's appearance underscores NVIDIA's broader commitment to manufacturing AI infrastructure in the U.S., which the company has pegged at up to $500 billion through domestic partnerships in Arizona and Texas. The groundbreaking marks a concrete step in the U.S. push to reshore advanced semiconductor manufacturing.