Virginia Economic Review

How Virginia Became the Data Center Capital of the World Virginia is home to the largest assemblage of data centers in the world, with Northern Virginia alone accounting for more than 100 (out of 504 known hyperscale data centers worldwide) that total more than 13.5 million square feet of data center space.

Susie Adams is chief technology officer for federal government business at Microsoft. She oversees and implements the technical strategy for the technology giant’s Department of Defense, civilian, and intelligence community businesses.

Seth Martindale is a senior managing director with CBRE Consulting. He has extensive experience in real estate strategic planning, working with both private and public sector clients.

Companies Find Tech Talent in the Mountains and Valleys of Virginia Big cities have long been synonymous with economic opportunity. But what if that's not universally true?

Virginia looks to increase the availability of development-ready sites with a two-pronged approach of characterization and development, working to bring business-ready sites online with greater speed and transparency than ever before.

Micron produces memory and storage solutions used in automotive, industrial, and networking markets. Recently, the company announced a $3-billion investment in Manassas that will add 1,100 new jobs by 2030. Manish Bhatia is executive vice president of global operations at Micron Technology.

The year 2006 marked a turning point for the town of Lebanon, for Russell County, and for the Southwest corner of Virginia: CGI, a Canadian company with a strong presence in tech-heavy Northern Virginia, located its first U.S. onshore delivery center in Lebanon.

Virginia Offers Best-in-Class Export Assistance for Companies' Complete Life Cycle Exporting can be a strong strategy for connecting companies with demand or diversifying their market bases to better weather economic conditions.

In 1969, an ad agency in Richmond developed one of the most enduring tourism marketing slogans of all time — Virginia is for Lovers. In the decades since, the slogan became legendary; not only because it was catchy, but because it was true.

When Amazon announced Northern Virginia as the location for its new headquarters (HQ2), it revealed more than the winning region. It revealed Virginia’s not-so-secret identity: Technology Talent Juggernaut.

Kevin Scott is chief technology officer and executive vice president, technology and research, at Microsoft, and the author of the 2020 book “Reprogramming the American Dream: From Rural America to Silicon Valley — Making AI Serve Us All,” which discusses how artificial intelligence can promote growth and benefit all of society.

International Companies Find Advantages in Locating U.S. Headquarters in Virginia Foreign companies looking for a launching point to serve the U.S. and North American markets have many choices on where to plant their flag. Virginia has proven fruitful as that launching point for many of them.

New Amazonians are onboarding. Construction milestones are being met. From timelines to pipelines, Amazon’s mammoth HQ2 undertaking is on time and full speed ahead.

In the competitive realm of corporate headquarters location decisions, the COVID-19 pandemic upended the way companies operate and could have major ramifications on office space moving forward.

Virginia's Veterans are a Natural Fit for Corporate Headquarters Virginia is home to 30 military installations and more than 721,000 veterans. It’s also home to 36 Fortune 1000 companies (eighth among U.S. states) and 2,300 corporate headquarters operations (seventh).

From its Bedford HQ, Company Eyes Overseas Markets for its Conveyor Systems For the past four decades, Sentry Equipment and Erectors, Inc. has fostered a reputation for delivering quality conveying systems and service to customers in all 50 states.

Town-and-Country Lifestyle, Access to University Talent Attract Investment While Virginia's larger metro areas along Interstates 95 and 64 have been recognized as technology hubs, the Commonwealth’s smaller metros are leveraging their unique strengths to create their own tech clusters.

Matt Calkins is founder and CEO of Appian, an enterprise cloud software company headquartered in McLean in Fairfax County. Calkins is a California native who founded Appian in 1999 and grew it into a publicly traded company.