Foxconn has announced that it will spend $10 billion dollars to build a new LCD TV factory in Wisconsin, USA. The company says that it will be a state-of-the-art plant that will be capable of producing 8K – four times 4K – LCD TV panels, according to a report by Marketwatch.

To establish “robust 8K ecosystem”
The news was announced by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker at an event together with US President Donald Trump and Foxconn CEO Terry Gou. Foxconn will spend $10 billion dollars over the course of the next three years to set up the 20 million square-foot plant.

- “We are thrilled to build a state-of-the art display fabrication plant in America’s heartland, which will be the first of a series of facilities we are building in several U.S. states as part of a robust 8K + 5G ecosystem in the United States,” Terry Gou said in a statement.

The factory will be capable of producing LCD TV panels with 8K resolution (7680x4320 pixels). 8K has four times as many pixels as 4K and sixteen times as many as Full HD. The industry sees 8K as the next logical step after 4K to increase demand for large-size TVs.


Foxconn is planning to use 8K panels in Sharp-branded LCD TVs. In March 2016, the company bought a majority stake in Sharp and is currently trying to cancel the licensing deal made with China’s Hisense to sell Sharp-branded TVs in the US.

The factory will initially employ 3,000 people, a number that could eventually grow to 13,000, it was said. 

Terry Gou proclaimed that no other plants in the US currently have the capabilities “to produce a complete 8K system”, adding that “we are going to change that and it starts today with this investment in Wisconsin”.

The company announced in April 2017 that it is building a 10.5-generation LCD plant for production of 8K LCD TV panels in Guangzhou, China.

Foxconn is perhaps best known for assembling Apple iPhones in China but following the acquisition of Sharp the company has started to branch out into LCD panel manufacturing. Foxconn is also producing TVs for Vizio.

- Source: Foxconn via Marketwatch