Trump administration announces Sibelco quartz investment in North Carolina
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sibelco will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on North Carolina quartz manufacturing tied to the semiconductor supply chain, but disclosed no site, timetable or job count.
The Trump administration announced a new North Carolina manufacturing investment during a Republican campaign rally in Greenville on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, saying industrial-minerals company Sibelco plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on quartz production connected to the semiconductor supply chain.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick made the announcement onstage at the rally led by President Donald Trump. Lutnick described the project as silicon manufacturing before explaining that it involves quartz, a material used in semiconductor production. Reuters reported the announcement, and Asheville-based WLOS independently published Lutnick’s remarks with video from the event.
What the administration announced
Lutnick said Sibelco would build the manufacturing operation in North Carolina and put the investment at “hundreds of millions of dollars.” Neither Lutnick nor Trump provided a precise dollar amount, a construction site, a timetable, a projected job count or details of any federal incentive during the public announcement. Sibelco had not posted a matching project release on its news page when this report was prepared.
Those omissions matter. The announcement establishes the company’s stated investment plan and the administration’s backing, but it does not yet show whether permits, financing or a final site agreement are complete. It also should not be read as an announcement that finished semiconductor chips will be fabricated at the project. The disclosed activity concerns quartz manufacturing further upstream in the supply chain.
Why North Carolina quartz matters
Sibelco already has a direct connection to North Carolina’s semiconductor-materials sector. On its corporate materials page, the company says its IOTA high-purity quartz comes from two ore bodies at Spruce Pine in the Appalachian Mountains. Sibelco says the material is used to make fused-quartz crucibles for growing silicon crystals, as well as tubing, ingots and other quartzware used during semiconductor-wafer processing.
That distinction explains why Lutnick called quartz a foundation of semiconductor production. High-purity quartz is not itself a computer chip, but equipment made from it is used in processes that produce the silicon wafers on which chips are built. Sibelco also lists photovoltaic cells, optical fiber and quartz lighting among applications for its high-purity material.
Announcement made in a campaign setting
The administration unveiled the plan at a political rally as Trump campaigned for Republican candidates before the November 3 midterm elections. Making an industrial announcement in that setting allowed the president to connect his manufacturing agenda to a competitive state, but the political venue does not supply the project details that would normally appear in a company statement or government award notice.
The investment is therefore a current and potentially significant manufacturing development, with important terms still unreported. The next verifiable milestones will be a formal Sibelco announcement, identification of the North Carolina site, any state or federal incentive documents, and a construction and hiring schedule. Until those records appear, the administration’s “hundreds of millions” figure remains a public estimate rather than a disclosed transaction value.
Sources and image credit
Reporting and records: Reuters, WLOS, the rally video and Sibelco’s high-purity quartz materials page.
Image: A semiconductor wafer being removed from processing equipment. Purdue Engineering, sourced through Wikimedia Commons from the original video; licensed under CC BY 4.0. Center-cropped to 1600×900; no text added.