| New Albany is a suburb of the capital of the third most active manufacturing state in the US. Intel is courting the federal government for direct semiconductor industry support that goes beyond tax breaks on semiconductor fabrication equipment. > Edit: On second thought, Arizona doesn't have port access either so I guess it's not really a significant consideration. From a pure logistics perspective, I'd say that Arizona beats Ohio. BNSF connects Arizona with both the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. (Not to mention Lake Michigan.) It's impossible to drive Route 66 from California to Texas without rolling alongside extensive trains hauling cargo through the desert. For me, the trains are one of the most scenic aspects of that drive. LAX is the eighth-busiest air cargo terminal in the world, and it has plenty of cargo flights to Asia where computer devices are often assembled. PHX is also one of the busiest cargo airports in the United States, albeit much less so than LAX or CVG. Fabs have massive physical plant inputs (eg. lithography machines), substantial commoditized manufacturing inputs (eg. boules/wafers, freshwater, industrial gas), and core outputs with small size and high value (ie. chips). The former two can be pipelined without knowing the exact product-by-product breakdown of customer demand, and the latter cannot. Infrastructure and labor concerns might also tip the scales one way or another. Water supply, wastewater management, energy cost, grid resiliency, labor supply, access to institutions for professional training, and other considerations can differ wildly between the two regions. |