Investor Watch: January 04, 2024

COVER STORY

Before we look back, let’s look forward. Mac Conway would have liked that.

WORKFORCE

Our index of objective measures might serve as a starting point for your analysis of workforce development in your next site search.

EMERGING TECH HUBS

An expanded edition of this look at ‘out-of-the-box’ cities around the globe for future software and support centers features a Q&A with author Josefien Glaudemans.

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Access the Digital Edition of the New Kansas Economic Development Guide

Three years of record-setting economic development performance have established Kansas as the New Gold Standard. You can now access the complete Digital Edition of this brand-new guide from Conway Custom Content, where you’ll find insightful interviews with Governor Laura Kelly, Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of Commerce David Toland and business and community leaders from across the Sunflower State. Read on to explore such topics as higher education and talent recruitment, the state’s electric vehicle and microelectronics ecosystems, incubators and accelerators, advanced manufacturing, certified sites, art havens and tourism, aerospace, reshoring, the allure of small towns and much more.

Access the Complete January Issue of Site Selection Via the Digital Edition

It’s right there for the taking: The entire 70th Anniversary issue of Site Selection, including the messages of our valued advertisers, is already accessible in Digital Edition format. Explore the results of our annual site selectors survey and the data-rich State of the States report. Learn from a case study involving AI in site selection. Gain insights into top countries, states and metros for logistics. Brush up on renewable energy development in India, BPO and services investments in Colombia, life sciences in western Europe and megaprojects in western Canada. State and area spotlights include trips to the Midwest, Alabama, Connecticut, Tennessee, Delaware and Michigan, plus the Tennessee Valley Authority Intelligence Report. And don’t miss Site Selection Investment Profiles of JobsOhio; San Bernardino County, California; Pflugerville, Texas; Hartford, Connecticut; and Wilmer, Texas.

Image courtesy of TeleGeography

The Economist last week highlighted the geopolitical and tech forces behind the proliferation of undersea data cables, and why those cables are a fundamental backbone of today’s global economy. ABC News is on the bandwagon too with its well-named documentary “The Cloud Under the Sea.”

See Site Selection’s past reporting on the rising profile of deepwater infrastructure.

Today’s news involving federal incentives for Microchip Technology’s reshoring comes on the heels of the company’s December opening of a new R&D facility at Cambridge Research Park in the UK.

Rendering courtesy of Microchip Technology

Last Friday, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo highlighted accomplishments in 2023 that included a CHIPS for America program that has earned more than 550 statements of interest from companies; an in-depth survey of the microelectronics supply chain; the Tech Hubs and Recompete programs; an AI Risk Management Framework from the National Institute of Standards and Technology; new programs from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; new restrictions involving China and Russia from the Bureau of Industry and Security; and much more. An announcement this morning highlights an agreement with Arizona-based Microchip Technology that will reshore its supply chain via federally incentivized facility investments in Gresham, Oregon, and Colorado Springs, Colorado.

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Photo courtesy of IOC

On December 22, the International Olympic Committee released a lengthy statement detailing measures it is considering to protect the future of the Olympic Winter Games in the face of climate change. This year the Winter Games celebrate 100 years since they began in Chamonix, France, in 1924. “We need to address very quickly this dramatic impact of climate change on winter sport,’ IOC President Thomas Bach said at the 141st IOC Session in Mumbai, India, in October. “By mid-century, there will remain practically just 10-12 NOCs [National Olympic Committees] who could host these snow events.”

The IOC is also considering dual allocation of the 2030 and 2034 editions, rotation of the Games among a permanent pool of hosts, and the creation of a decentralized hosting model to reduce the costs of the Games. “I don’t think there is a Doomsday scenario where we say, ‘OK, by 2050 no more Olympic Winter Games,’ ” said Christophe Dubi, the IOC’s Olympic Games executive director. “But the Games will have had to have adapted themselves to the conditions at that point in time.”