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Facility: Forge Battery gigafactory, 401 Southport Drive, Morrisville, NC. Owner: Forge Battery Inc. (subsidiary of Forge Nano Inc.). Strategic partner: Samsung SDI (equity investor, equipment supplier, contracted offtake). Announced capacity: 3 GWh. Product: NMC811/SiOx cells, ALD-coated cathode and anode. Stated status: "Under construction" per the August 2026 groundbreaking release; production targeted for 2028. Assessed status: Under construction as of 2026-08-19, running two years behind the original operational date. No Morrisville-produced cell exists, management has disclosed going-concern doubt, and the $200–230 million required beyond the DOE grant is described in filings as expected rather than committed.
The Ledger
2023-11-14 — Initial announcement
Stated: Governor Cooper's office announced that Forge Nano planned a lithium-ion battery plant in Morrisville: investment "exceeding $165 million," approximately 200 jobs, facility "expected to be operational in 2026."
Observed: Morrisville Town Council unanimously approved an economic-development grant agreement on 2023-11-28. The state JDIG annual report lists a qualifying investment target of $142 million, not the $165 million-plus in the press release.
Gap: Two public records from the same state cite different investment figures. Neither has been reconciled.
2024-08 — Wake County report records missed H1 2024 groundbreaking
Stated: A Wake County Economic Development report published in August 2024 said a groundbreaking had been "planned for the first half of 2024."
Observed: No groundbreaking occurred. Forge Nano was private at the time and made no public statement addressing the slip.
Gap: First published construction milestone passed without event or explanation.
2024-07-31 — Prototype cell shipments (confirming)
Stated: Forge Battery announced shipments of NMC811/SiOx 21700 cells carrying UN 38.3 and UL 1642 certifications.
Observed: The release identified the source as Forge's Thornton, Colorado prototype line plus third-party manufacturers. Application-specific cycle-life testing was described as underway.
Gap: None on the stated claim. The cells came off Thornton and contract lines: a different process, different equipment, different scale from the Samsung-equipped Morrisville line. Qualification history from one production process does not transfer to another.
2024-11-11 / 2026-06-26 — Contradictory local characterizations
Stated: Carolina Public Press reported in November 2024 that the gigafactory was "under construction." Axios Raleigh reported in June 2026 that the project was "stalled" and that "construction could begin."
Observed: Two local outlets, 19 months apart, using opposite characterizations of the same site. No retrieved permit record establishes whether activity between late 2024 and mid-2026 consisted of landlord shell work, design, or Forge-controlled production construction. Morrisville's e-permit portal did not yield a Forge-specific result; that is an access limitation on our end, not evidence that permits were absent.
Gap: The local reporting record does not form a coherent construction timeline. What happened at the site between late 2024 and mid-2026 is not publicly established.
2025-03-31 — Lease execution (confirming)
Stated: Forge Battery signed its Morrisville lease on 2025-03-31, amended 2026-05-08.
Observed: The S-4 reports a $2.8 million lease deposit paid after Q1 2026 and $4.1 million of non-cash Morrisville rent expense beginning in 2025.
Gap: None. Lease executed and generating expense. Site commitment confirmed.
2026-03-31 — Financial position disclosed
Stated: Forge's S-4/A, filed 2026-07-24, projects gigafactory cost of $300–330 million, funded by a $100 million DOE grant plus $200–230 million of equity and debt financing "subject to market and other customary conditions."
Observed: At 2026-03-31: $17.3 million cash, $11.7 million quarterly net loss, $140.8 million accumulated deficit, going-concern qualification from management. Company-wide construction in progress: $5.7 million. Headcount 119, roughly 80% of it in Thornton. Post-quarter, Forge raised $24 million in Series D, $10 million of which went to Samsung as an equipment deposit.
Gap: The facility requires $200–230 million beyond the DOE grant. Cash position and burn rate produced a going-concern finding, and the financing plan is stated as an expectation rather than a commitment. Whether the pending SPAC combination supplies sufficient capital is not established in the reviewed filings.
2026-04-16 — DOE grant terms formalized (confirming)
Stated: The DOE assistance agreement obligates $100 million, with Budget Period 1 ($17.5M federal share) running through 2027-03-31. Continuation depends on technical progress, cost-share capacity, and a DOE go/no-go decision.
Observed: Forge submitted $5.5 million in reimbursement requests during 2025 and recognized $4.8 million in grant income. The S-4 notes lower Q1 2026 grant activity while Forge petitioned to extend Budget Period 1 "per DOE mandate." DOE's disposition of that request is not disclosed. This is a reimbursement grant; Forge does not appear in the LPO portfolio.
Gap: The DOE relationship is active and funded, but the extension request indicates the original Budget Period 1 pace was not met. The milestone table (Statement of Project Objectives) that would show which items slipped was not included in the public exhibit.
2026-06-25 — Samsung SDI partnership
Stated: Forge announced a "landmark strategic partnership" with Samsung SDI, including a "conditional procurement agreement beginning in 2028."
Observed: The S-4 discloses more specific terms: definitive agreements executed Q1–Q2 2026; Samsung purchasing 250 MWh per year for three years after operations begin, 750 MWh total; Samsung investing $10 million in Series D plus $10 million in the SPAC PIPE; Samsung supplying the 3 GWh production line equipment. One section of the S-4 describes the offtake as "take-or-pay"; the public announcement calls it "conditional." The underlying contracts are not among the public S-4 exhibits. No Samsung SDI disclosure or Korean regulatory filing confirming the arrangement was identified.
Gap: Real capital is committed: equity invested, equipment contracted, offtake signed. But 250 MWh/year against 3 GWh nameplate is 8.3%, and the filing's own language moves between "take-or-pay" and "conditional." Acceptance criteria, qualification tests, pricing, and termination rights are not public. Samsung has not independently confirmed the arrangement through its own disclosure channels as of 2026-08-28.
2026-07-24 — Internal timeline inconsistency
Stated: The S-4/A's commercial-agreements section projects construction beginning Q3 2026, equipment arrival Q3 2027, commissioning by end of Q1 2028, production by mid-2028. A separate section of the same filing says "operations were expected to commence in 2027 and reach full capacity in 2028."
Observed: The DOE project sheet, updated 2025-01-15, still references market entry in 2026 and full 3 GWh production by 2029.
Three operational dates coexist across Forge's own documents:
| Source | Operational date |
|---|---|
| Original announcement / DOE project sheet | 2026 |
| S-4/A narrative section | 2027 |
| S-4/A commercial-agreements section | Mid-2028 |
Gap: The groundbreaking release settles on 2028 without specifying which half.
2026-08-19 — Groundbreaking (confirming)
Stated: Forge broke ground on an expansion to "nearly 315,000 square feet."
Observed: The event occurred. Two Forge job postings, Director of Quality Assurance and Director of IT, were visible on LinkedIn for the Morrisville site, describing early-stage ramp and plant-floor systems. No WARN filings for Forge appear in North Carolina records for 2024–2026.
Gap: Groundbreaking confirmed. Hiring is leadership-level, consistent with pre-construction rather than production staffing. On footprint, the release cites "nearly 315,000 square feet" while the S-4/A filed four weeks earlier describes a 100,000-square-foot existing building with a then-planned expansion to 250,000–280,000 square feet total. Whether 315,000 refers to total footprint or to the expansion alone is not specified, and neither reading reconciles cleanly with the S-4 figures.
Incentive status — standing condition, not a dated entry
The state JDIG (Job Development Investment Grant) and the town grant are structured around jobs, wages, and investment thresholds rather than operational-date milestones. The 2025 JDIG report lists Forge Battery as an active grantee with no withdrawal or termination noted, and shows no certified performance payment. The town agreement's recapture terms were not fully retrieved from council minutes. The two-year schedule slip has no documented incentive consequence in the public record, but the full agreement terms that would confirm that are not available.
Trajectory Assessment
Across 33 months, each confirming signal (lease, DOE grant, Samsung agreements, groundbreaking) arrived later than the preceding stated schedule implied. The H1 2024 groundbreaking did not happen; the 2026 operational date became 2027 in one section of the S-4 and mid-2028 in another; Budget Period 1 required an extension request. None of that points toward abandonment, but the record contains no instance of a stated date being met.
The binding constraint is capital rather than construction. Forge held $17.3 million at the end of Q1 against a $300–330 million project, and management's own going-concern language makes the dependency explicit. If the SPAC combination closes with proceeds sufficient to fund the build, 2028 becomes a question of construction and commissioning execution. Without it, the dates in the filings are not something a buyer can plan against.
Funding alone would not settle the qualification question. As discussed in Issue #9, physical construction is one gate among several. Forge has produced no cell at Morrisville. The 2024 prototype shipments came out of Thornton and contract manufacturers, on different equipment and a different process, and track record does not carry across that boundary. Samsung's 250 MWh/year, even read as take-or-pay, covers 8.3% of nameplate; the acceptance criteria that would govern whether Morrisville cells clear the agreement are not public.
If the current pattern holds, production in 2028 requires that construction, equipment delivery, commissioning, and initial qualification each proceed without the slippage that has attended every prior phase.
For anyone modeling Forge Nano into a 2028 supply plan, the observed cadence is the better input than the stated date.
Last verified: 2026-08-28. Sources: S-4/A filed 2026-07-24, DOE agreement effective 2026-04-16, groundbreaking release 2026-08-19, NC JDIG reports through 2025, Morrisville council minutes 2023-11-28.
- SPAC closing and capitalization: Forge's S-4/A describes the pending Archimedes Tech SPAC combination as the vehicle for the equity and debt financing the project requires beyond the DOE grant, and its closing or failure would resolve the going-concern question.
- DOE Budget Period 1 extension: Forge disclosed petitioning to extend the first budget period "per DOE mandate" but did not publish DOE's disposition, and the DOE assistance agreement makes continuation funding contingent on a go/no-go decision that could attach conditions or decline future periods.
- Samsung independent confirmation: No Samsung SDI newsroom release or Korean DART filing confirming the equipment supply, offtake terms, or relationship to Samsung's own US capacity plans (including New Carlisle) was identified through 2026-08-28.
- Morrisville permit record: The town's e-permit portal did not yield a Forge-specific result through bounded access, and retrieving building, mechanical, or electrical permits would resolve whether pre-groundbreaking site activity was landlord shell work or Forge-controlled production construction.