By Yang Jie
Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn plans to work with partners to convert a former electric-truck factory in Lordstown, Ohio, into a plant making cloud computing hardware for artificial-intelligence applications, people familiar with the plans said Monday.
It is a symbolic move for the American economy under President Trump, who signed a budget bill that ended subsidies for electric vehicles but has promoted U.S. manufacturing of AI equipment, such as computers and chips, as well as the construction of data centers to perform AI tasks.
Once the site of a General Motors car factory, the Lordstown facility was bought by a startup called Lordstown Motors in 2019 to produce electric pickup trucks. The startup made only a handful of trucks before declaring bankruptcy in 2023.
When Lordstown ran into trouble, Foxconn acquired the facility and discussed producing vehicles there in partnership with the startup. The partnership ended in acrimony and Foxconn has now embarked on a different plan.
The company has sold the 6.2 million-square-foot plant and the manufacturing equipment in Lordstown for $375 million, but it will continue operating at the site and "expand into new business areas," it said.
The people familiar with the matter said the new areas involve computing hardware such as servers used in AI applications. While Foxconn gave the name of a little-known entity as the buyer of the Lordstown land, the ultimate owner is another entity whose name hasn't been made public yet, the people said.
Foxconn, whose formal name is Hon Hai Precision Industry, is known for manufacturing iPhones for Apple in China and India. Its server business is quickly catching up in importance. In the first quarter of this year, the category including servers accounted for 34% of Foxconn's total revenue, while the sector that includes smartphones contributed about 40%.
Foxconn operates manufacturing facilities in six U.S. states. In addition to its plants, such as one in Houston for AI servers, the company has joined with firms such as Apple and Nvidia to help build AI-related facilities in the U.S.
At one time, Trump celebrated the idea of making electric-powered trucks in the U.S. At a White House event in September 2020, he said the Lordstown Motors truck was "an incredible piece of science" and the Ohio region was "absolutely booming" thanks to investments in EVs and batteries.
In Trump's second term, the focus has shifted to AI. Surging demand has created an enormous need for specialized hardware, from semiconductors to data centers. American manufacturers are playing a central role in building this infrastructure, with capital investment in AI-ready data centers projected by McKinsey to exceed $5 trillion by 2030, much of it concentrated in the U.S.
The administration's AI action plan, released in July, calls for fast-tracking AI infrastructure and eliminating red tape for AI builders. Trump says his tariffs are designed to promote domestic manufacturing.
Write to Yang Jie at jie.yang@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 04, 2025 08:14 ET (12:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comments