Gradiant has secured US$300m in new water infrastructure contracts from semiconductor manufacturers since the beginning of 2026, strengthening its position in the rapidly expanding US chip manufacturing market.
The contracts cover five semiconductor fabrication sites across New York, Virginia, Idaho and Utah. Gradiant will provide ultrapure water (UOW) systems, high-recovery wastewater treatment, local scrubber reclaim and zero liquid discharge (ZLD) technologies.
The projects will address the semiconductor sector’s growing water requirements as manufacturers expand domestic production to meet demand for AI infrastructure, including high-bandwidth memory. Semiconductor fabrication requires large quantities of UPW, while constraints on freshwater availability and wastewater discharge can affect the speed and scale at which new capacity is developed.
Gradiant said its systems are designed to reduce freshwater withdrawals, increase the recovery and reuse of process water and treat complex waste streams, including wastewater containing hydrofluoric acid. Its scope across the five sites covers multiple stages of the industrial water cycle rather than individual treatment processes.
Several of the awards came from existing customers. These include the second phase of a high-recovery wastewater facility at one of the world’s largest semiconductor fabs, alongside a scrubber reclaim system that has previously been deployed for the same customer in Singapore, Taiwan and the US. The system can recover more than 80% of its feed volume.
“Water will not be the reason a fab falls behind,” said Prakash Govindan, CEO of Gradiant.
The contract wins underline the growing commercial importance of water infrastructure within the semiconductor supply chain. As chipmakers invest in new fabrication capacity, the ability to secure reliable supplies of ultrapure water and manage increasingly complex wastewater streams is becoming integral to project execution, operational resilience and regulatory compliance.
Gradiant is targeting a US order book of $1bn in 2027. Nish Vora, managing director for the Americas at Gradiant, said the awards represented “exactly the kind of momentum we need” to reach that goal.
The company has delivered more than 3,000 water and wastewater treatment plants across 92 countries. Its latest awards position industrial water treatment as a core component of the infrastructure required to support continued investment in US semiconductor manufacturing and the wider AI economy.