Fresh from the latest trip to South Korea, Williamson County’s top economic-development leader said numerous suppliers to Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. are moving forward again to find sites near its advanced semiconductor foundry.
There are an estimated 145 companies that could potentially open manufacturing or supply facilities in Taylor and neighboring communities to provide goods and services needed to create the advanced chips expected to power the brains of a new generation of Tesla electric cars as part of a $16 billion deal with the automaker.
While several of those companies already have made the move to Williamson County, there are numerous others that held continuing talks with the county’s elected officials and economic development personnel in South Korea last week, said Dave Porter, executive director of the Williamson County Economic Development Partnership.
He spoke during a luncheon address Monday to the Greater Taylor Chamber of Commerce.
“A lot of the suppliers are now ready to engage in their site selection. Williamson County wants a big piece of that,” Porter said.
“In Korea ‘Taylor City’ is famous, about as famous as New York City. Taylor City is frequently mentioned in Korean press,” Porter said of how important the Texas project is for Samsung and the country.
Samsung’s various units including semiconductors and consumer electronics accounted for 13% of South Korea’s gross domestic product in 2024, according to the country’s Yonhap News Agency.
Williamson County is using that notoriety to woo other industries to the area.
“We love semiconductors, but we need to diversify,” Porter said.
He added the partnership will continue economic-development missions to Korea and maintain an office there but will now start ramping down expenditures.
The organization is now working on a new five-year strategic plan that will inform what other industries and parts of the world to target to bring more jobs and tax base to Wilco, he informed the audience.
There are companies in several South Korean industry sectors outside semiconductors that are interested in the county and the general Central Texas area, Porter added.
The county also is taking advantage of Texas’ strong ties to Taiwanese industry. The Governor’s Office established an economic development branch in Taiwan, its second major international outpost in addition to a long-time presence in Mexico City. The state also is opening a London office and another in Israel.
Pegatron, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer that count Apple and Round Rock-based Dell as customers, has said it will build a plant in Georgetown to make servers for data centers that drive the fast-growing artificial intelligence industry.
Data centers also are planned for Hutto and Taylor.
Porter said Williamson County is hoping to land another one or two companies in the AI manufacturing arena in the coming months.
Recent economicdevelopment activity has brought 3,200 new jobs to Williamson County cities, he told listeners.
In a national survey of 3,000 U.S. counties, Wilco ranked in the top 10 for job growth, with a 2.5% increase from year to year. Porter said he would have liked to see a higher ranking in wage growth, which was 7.4% giving the county a ranking of 21st in the nation in increased wages.
Industry and population growth in the county caused the taxable value of property in Wilco to rise from $85 billion in 2020 to $185 billion this year, Porter said.
