A massive data center campus and accompanying innovation hub move forward in West London. Hyundai makes a $173 million R&D investment in Germany. Eli Lilly and Company will pour $1.2 billion into an expansion of its Lilly del Caribe facility, located at a site the company has operated in Puerto Rico for 60 years.
“As global competition intensifies, particularly with China expanding its industrial reach, the United States is forging deeper ties with India,” writes Tractus India Consulting Manager Anand Verma. “This partnership goes beyond diplomacy. It’s reshaping where and how things get made.”
State and local economic development programs might seem like natural candidates for the Abundance movement to support. However, the Abundance movement has largely ignored or been hostile to local economic development. Tim Bartik, senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, offers a different perspective.
The state’s role as a critical minerals hub is one reason Australia-based MLB Industrial, a maker of lithium-ion batteries and industrial energy storage products, picked Oklahoma for its first U.S. operation. Another is critical minerals’ increasingly important role in aerospace and defense — Oklahoma’s fastest growing industry.
Last week Fermi America in partnership with the Texas Tech University System announced preliminary approval by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) of 6 GW of natural gas-based power generation at the projected 11-GW Project Matador campus, making the project “one of the largest clean natural gas power generation facilities in the world,” the company said in a release. “The entire premise behind the 11 GW private HyperGrid campus being built on clean natural gas, nuclear, solar and battery power is that the nation’s grid cannot grow fast enough to keep pace with the AI race,” the company stated, “nor should consumers be expected to foot the bill through rising utility rates to support the most successful companies in the world.”
Learn more about the Fermi America project and so much more in Site Selection’s Texas spotlight from the publication’s September issue, “Texas Connections.”
GREAT LAKES INVESTMENT GUIDE 2025
LEADERSHIP Q&A: WISCONSIN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORP.
After six years leading her state to achieve $8 billion in new capital investment and the creation or retention of 45,000 jobs, outgoing Wisconsin EDC Secretary and CEO Missy Hughes, now running for governor, paused to reflect on the highlights of this era in a recent interview.
Tech Square at the Georgia Institute of Technology campus last year marked 20 years of development.
Photo courtesy of Georgia Tech
Steve Case’s Revolution: Rise of the Rest organization first rolled through Atlanta with its bus tour a decade ago. Last month the Revolution team returned to see both tremendous progress and opportunities ready to be seized at locations such as Ponce City Market, architecture firm Cove and Georgia Tech’s Tech Square, now home to more than 100 startups and 25 corporate innovation centers. “The challenge isn’t talent,” Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera noted in conversation with Steve Case. “It’s knitting together industries and capital tightly enough to reach top-five tech hub status.”
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Photo by Nathan Mitchell of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit courtesy of U.S. Marine Corps and Defense Visual Information Distribution Service
U.S. Marines and Sailors with Combat Logistics Battalion 26, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), disembark San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS San Antonio (LPD 17), to provide foreign assistance to Jamaica following Hurricane Melissa while underway in the Caribbean Sea last Thursday. “At the direction and request of U.S. Southern Command and Jamaica’s government, the 22nd MEU(SOC) supports Joint Task Force-Bravo by providing foreign assistance in the wake of Hurricane Melissa to alleviate suffering and help stabilize affected communities,” said an official release.
