Based on a points system driven by corporate facility investment and affiliated job creation, Site Selection presents the Top Deals of 2025 in North America and Top 20 from everywhere else in the world in ranked order by total points earned. Multibillion-dollar projects in electronics, data, energy, steel, and advanced manufacturing led in deals made in North America and across the globe last year.
The facilities located on these sites, which produce or are set to produce the materials and components that run the entire high-tech world as well as nearly every critical industry on the globe, also raked in jobs.
In North America, the top 20 deals clocked about 41,465 new jobs. Aerospace startup JetZero, based in Long Beach, California, and No. 2 on our North American list, announced its first venture into commercial aviation last year in June with its new $4 billion facility in Greensboro, North Carolina. The project will locate at the Piedmont Triad International Airport and generate a whopping 14,000 jobs when completed. Anduril Industries, dronemaker and developer of AI software, defense and surveillance technologies, announced at the start of 2025 that it will base its first “Arsenal factory” in Columbus, Ohio — an almost $1 billion development that will reap over 4,000 direct jobs (No. 12). To date, Anduril’s decision to locate the manufacturing facility in Pickaway County makes it the “largest single job-creation project” ever in Ohio.
Topping North American deals with a $7 billion investment and 3,000 jobs is Amkor Technology, Inc., which increased its original investment at its Peoria, Arizona-based advanced semiconductor manufacturing and test campus by $5 billion, up from $2 billion, last October. The United States overall saw a significant boost to the ever-important semiconductor manufacturing industry, lifted by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 that has incentivized nearly $53 billion in domestic semiconductor manufacturing and R&D.
Investments Abroad
In International Top Deals, total jobs were nearly double than those seen in North America — 82,030 across 20 projects, with the steel and energy sectors dominating the top of the list. Nine of 20 international projects were announced in the country of India, which led all other countries.
JK Srivastava Hynfra Energy Storage tops the international deals list with a $4 billion green hydrogen and ammonia hub in Machilipatnam, India, near the port of Visakhapatnam. The joint venture between Hynfra and the JK Srivastava Group will be completely powered by renewables and is expected to generate a staggering 10,000 jobs when complete, producing up to 1 million metric tons of green ammonia annually and installing 3 GW of renewable energy capacity when operational in 2029. Most of the ammonia produced there is expected to be exported to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan for power generation, with the remaining product planned for use in the domestic sectors of fertilizer, power, transport and digital infrastructure.
The Indian state of Andhra Pradesh aims to be home to a “Green Hydrogen Valley,” marking this investment as a key component of that plan.
The energy industry also led the way internationally. In Tanzania, a uranium pilot processing plant by Uranium One, a subsidiary of Russian-owned nuclear state corporation Rosatom, is set to produce 3,000 metric tons of uranium annually when commissioning begins in 2029, with construction set to start in 2026. In the Red Sea coastal town of Ain Sokhna, located about 34 miles south of the southern part of the Suez Canal and 75 miles east of Cairo, Chinese manufacturer Kibing Group is spending $685 million to build the largest solar panel factory in the country of Egypt. Egyptian silica sand will be used in the manufacturing of the products planned to be produced, and about 80% of the product output will be exported to European and American markets. The project will span over 800,000 sq. meters (8.6 million sq. ft.) and create 3,000 direct jobs.
Four ranking international projects involved metal manufacturing, one in copper smelting in Karagandy, Kazakhstan, by Quarmet JSC (No. 8) and the rest all located in India and focused on producing steel and steel products (Nos. 2, 7 and 20).
Outliers
Outside of metals, tech and energy, other industries in North America also saw steep investment. Pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly and Company stayed in the headlines last year for its sprawling expansion in the United States, earmarking $6.5 billion for a Houston site and $5 billion in Goochland County, Virginia (Nos. 10 and 11, respectively, on the North American Top Deals). The facilities will produce GLP-1 medications, monoclonal antibody therapies and other active pharmaceutical ingredients important to the medical supply chain. From 2020 to 2024, the company invested $23 billion domestically, including new sites in Lebanon, Indiana; updates and expansions to Indianapolis-based facilities; and the acquisition and expansion of a site in Kenosha County, Wisconsin. The Indianapolis-based company also started building, expanding and operating new facilities in Research Triangle Park and Concord, North Carolina.
Last summer, I toured the $1 billion Concord site, a two-hour drive west of North Carolina’s Research Triangle and a half-hour drive from the Charlotte airport. There, injectable products and medicine are made for the health care market.
Other less overtly tech-focused outliers in the Top 20 North American deals include a $1.2 billion food manufacturing hub in Rome, New York, by Chobani (No. 18) and a massive $1 billion upgrade and expansion in the Gulf Copper shipyard in Galveston, Texas, by Davie Defense and partner Pearlson Shiplift (No. 13), that will build icebreaker vessels and arctic security cutters and create 2,000 skilled jobs in the Galveston area upon completion.
A massive $1 billion upgrade and expansion in the Gulf Copper shipyard in Galveston, Texas, by Davie Defense and partner Pearlson Shiplift, will see the production of icebreaker vessels and arctic security cutters.
Photo courtesy of Davie Shipbuilding
Internationally, South Korean shipbuilder HD Hyundai is also set to invest over half a billion dollars in the Philippines in Subic Bay (No. 15 among International Deals). The company aims to build commercial vessels and also provide maintenance service for the Philippine Navy on its 200 leased hectares (494 acres) in the former Hanjin shipyard over the next 10 years. In India, aircraft engineering company Max Aerospace & Aviation Private Ltd. announced its intention to make helicopters for military and civilian use at a Nagpur-based facility (No. 16) in what will be one of the first private sector helicopter manufacturing projects in the country, according to The Times of India. The helicopter hub will cost nearly $1 billion and generate 2,000 jobs.
