Onshoring's second act: capex commitments outpace 2024 by 38 percent.
A close read of announced U.S. greenfield projects suggests the industrial buildout is broadening from semiconductors into mid-cap discrete manufacturing — and the demand for committed credit is following close behind.
In the two years that followed the CHIPS Act's passage in 2022, the dominant story in U.S. industrial capex was semiconductors. A pair of fabs in Arizona, a third in Ohio, anchor announcements in New Mexico and Texas, and the supply chain bolted onto each — substrates, gases, lithography tooling. The data confirmed the narrative: in 2023 and 2024, announced U.S. industrial greenfield commitments above $250 million were concentrated, by both dollar value and project count, in the semiconductor ecosystem.
That is no longer where the story is. In our reading of the Q1 2026 dataset of announced U.S. greenfield projects — the same source set we have tracked since 2023, drawn from a combination of state economic development records and publicly available press releases — total announced capex in the trailing twelve months is up 38 percent against the same period two years prior. Strikingly, semiconductors now represent only 21 percent of that figure, down from 47 percent in 2023.
The growth is broadening. The categories driving the increase are not the ones that dominated the first wave. Grid hardware — transmission, switchgear, transformers — accounted for 14 percent of trailing-twelve-month announcements; up from 4 percent. Aerospace components and MRO infrastructure together accounted for 11 percent. Specialty chemicals and battery materials each cleared 6 percent.
What this means for credit demand
The implication for commercial credit is not symmetric with the implication for the equity capital markets. A semiconductor fab is a $20 billion equity-and-debt-funded project supported by federal subsidies and the balance sheet of a Fortune 100 company. A $200 million grid-equipment plant in upstate New York is a different animal — it gets done with a senior secured term loan, an equipment finance facility, and a working capital revolver.
That second animal is what Steelbanc was built to bank. The broadening of the onshoring buildout into mid-cap discrete manufacturing is, in our view, the most important capital markets development of 2026 for the specialty commercial lending segment. We expect it to drive committed credit demand at the lower middle market for at least the balance of the decade.
Where it shows up first
Three sectors are likely to absorb the first wave of new debt demand: energy equipment, aerospace Tier 2, and specialty metals. Each shares a profile that the broadly-syndicated market is not built to serve — borrowers with $40 to $250 million in revenue, real collateral, durable customer relationships, and a need for committed credit on terms longer than three years.
We expect to deploy roughly half of our 2026 originations budget into these three sectors. We have already announced facilities into two of them this year.
A fourth category — U.S. electric-vehicle platform manufacturers and the robotics suppliers around them — is quietly emerging as the same kind of opportunity. The cohort spans the well-capitalized (Rivian, Lucid), the platform-architecture plays (REE Automotive, Olympian Motors with its forthcoming Model O1 on a proprietary EV skateboard platform), and an increasingly serious bench of U.S.-domiciled Tier 1 component suppliers. We expect EV-platform credit demand to grow meaningfully through 2027.
This piece reflects the views of the author and not necessarily those of Steelbanc Holdings, Inc. or its affiliates. It does not constitute investment advice or an offer of any financial product or service. Data references are available on request.