High-Tech Trends Have GLOBAL Effect

Area Development Site and Facility Planning, Oct/Nov 2007 by Avery, Susan

The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, a nonprofit group funded by various foundations and private donors, recently produced a mashup Google map of the United States showing the cities with the highest concentrations of companies, organizations, universities, and government agencies involved in nanotech. The top-two "NanoMetros" identified by the group were San Jose and Boston. Three other California cities - San Francisco, Oakland, and San Diego - and one other Massachusetts city - Middlesex-Essex - also made the list, along with Denver, Austin, Houston, and Chicago.

The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), a U.S. government program that coordinates the nanotechrelated work of 26 federal agencies, has seen its R&D budget increase every year since it began in 2001, now up to $1.4 billion for FY2008. NSF is the lead federal agency for NNI, overseeing operations of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, which includes more than a dozen partner universities throughout the country that provide access to nanotech R&D facilities for both academic and industry users.

Also part of NNI are five nanoscale science research centers operated by the Department of Energy at Brookhaven (NY), Sandia/Los Alamos (NM), Oak Ridge (TN), Argonne (IL), and Lawrence Berkeley (CA) national laboratories; plus intense nanotech research being conducted by the Department of Defense primarily through its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and through the research offices of the service branches. All military branches are undergoing technology modernization programs, investing in advanced communication technologies and weapons systems in which nanotech will inevitably play a major role.

The Joint Economic Committee report on nanotech predicts that as early as 2010, there will be "nanosystems" assemblies of nanotools or nanodevices that function together to perform tasks; by 2015, actual manipulation of atoms to design molecules will be possible; and by 2020, nanotech could possibly reach what some scientists call "singularity" and take on a life of its own, using artificial intelligence far beyond the capabilities of its human creators.

"Since the path from initial discovery to product application takes 10-12 years, the initial scientific foundations for these technologies are already starting to emerge from laboratories," notes the report, which was signed by Senior Economist Joseph Kennedy. Since "as we go forward, an increasing proportion of investment in nanotechnology will come from the private sector," the report recommends that nanotech "be allowed to proceed as other transforming technologies such as chemistry, steam power, and electricity have done."

Globalism

Just as nanotech is expected to become integrated into almost every industry and eventually permeate almost every aspect of daily life, so is globalism a fact of life for all high-tech companies.

Ofishoring in the semiconductor industry has been taking place for decades, initially for lower labor costs in the assembly process, but now increasingly for complex fabrication and design work, with Taiwan and China the major chosen locations. Oflshoring of software services, primarily to India, gained momentum about 10 years ago. A growing number of U.S. companies are outsourcing R&D work of all kinds to foreign countries as the quality of math, science, and engineering education has continued to improve overseas. China, for example, now annually awards four times as many engineering bachelor's degrees than the United States does.