Tech might not be the first thing that comes to mind when one pictures Phoenix. The city is better known for its golf courses, Major League Baseball’s Spring Training, retirement appeal and scorching heat.
But its growth into an innovation hub has been quietly playing out over several decades. Arizona’s largest city has, for a variety of reasons, become the epicenter for semiconductor manufacturing, and testing self-driving cars and drones.
“If we look at cities that really do end up becoming these, you know, important technology hubs, there are really four things that we usually see, and Phoenix really has all of them going,” said Anne Hoecker, global head of technology at Bain Global. “The first is a favorable business environment. The second really is that ecosystem of other companies. The next is really close proximity to a university that has a strong engineering program. And then finally it is that availability of talent.”
TSMC makes the most advanced chips in the world, and has pledged to invest $65 billion in the greater Phoenix area. The chipmaker initially held discussions with the city of Phoenix in 2016, when it was looking to grow its advanced chip manufacturing beyond Taiwan. In order to secure the bid, the Greater Phoenix Economic Council spent three years conceptualizing a science and technology park to meet the needs of the company. The project, once complete, expects to bring in about 62,000 jobs surrounding and including TSMC.
“They’re basically duplicating the science park concept that was pioneered in Taiwan,” said Rick Cassidy, chairman of TSMC Arizona. “It solves lots of problems for our smaller suppliers. They can actually rent space and just plug in.”
Self-driving cars are another hallmark of the city’s tech scene. Uber, Cruise and Alphabet‘s Waymo have all tested autonomous vehicles in the city. The infrastructure in Phoenix, with its gridded streets and consistent weather, made it an “optimal” place to roll these out, according to Bain’s Hoecker.
Arizona’s policy has been welcoming to self-driving technology. Former Arizona Governor Doug Ducey enacted several executive orders to reduce barriers for autonomous testing. Waymo began testing in Phoenix in 2017 and is the biggest player in the market. The company’s robotaxi service now operates across 315 square miles in the city.
Drones have been another technology putting the city on the map. In November, Amazon received regulatory approval to launch its Prime Air drone program in Tolleson, a suburb in west Phoenix. The plan is to scale the program to 500 million deliveries per year, according to Amazon. The company says thousands of packages have been delivered so far.
“It’s about scaling around the U.S. and around the world, said David Carbon, vice president and general manager of Amazon Prime Air, adding that more is coming in 2025. “This is just the beginning.”
Watch the video as CNBC’s Kate Rooney gets a behind-the-scenes look at Amazon’s cutting-edge drone operation and explores how Phoenix became a hot spot for tech.
In its second quarterly financial results as a public company, CoreWeave reported an adjusted loss of 27 cents per share, compared to a 21-cent loss per share expected by analysts polled by LSEG.
CoreWeave’s results came as the lock-up period following its initial public offering is set to expire Thursday evening and potentially add volatility to shares. The term refers to a set period of time following a market debut when insiders are restricted from selling shares.
“We remain constructive long term and are encouraged by today’s data points, but see near-term upside capped by the potential CORZ related dilution and uncertainty, and the pending lock-up expiration on Thursday,” wrote analysts at Stifel, referencing the recent acquisition of Core Scientific.
Shares of Core Scientific fell 7% Wednesday.
In the current quarter, the company projects $1.26 billion to $1.30 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by LSEG forecasted $1.25 billion. CoreWeave also lifted 2025 revenue guidance to between $5.15 billion and $5.35, up from a $4.9 billion to $5.1 billion forecast provided in May and above a $5.05 billion estimate.
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Some analysts were hoping for stronger guidance given the stock’s massive surge since going public in March. Others highlighted light capital expenditures guidance and a delay in some spending until the fourth quarter as a potential point of weakness.
“This delay in capex highlights the uncertainty around deployment time; as go-live timing is pushed, in-period revenue recognition will be smaller,” wrote analysts at Morgan Stanley.
The AI infrastructure provider said revenue more than tripled from a year ago to $1.21 billion as it continues to benefit from surging AI demand. That also surpassed a $1.08 billion forecast from Wall Street. Finance chief Nitin Agrawal also said during a call with analysts that demand outweighs supply.
The New Jersey-based company, whose customers include OpenAI, Microsoft and Nvidia, also said it has recently signed expansion deals with hyperscale customers.
CoreWeave acquired AI model monitoring startup Weights and Biases for $1.4 billion during the period and said it finished the quarter with a $30.1 billion revenue backlog.
Apple CEO Tim Cook (R) shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump during an event in the Oval Office of the White House on August 6, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Win Mcnamee | Getty Images
Top tech executives are at the forefront of a recent swathe of unprecedented deals with U.S. President Donald Trump.
In just the last few days, the White House confirmed that two U.S. chipmakers, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, would be allowed to sell advanced chips to China in exchange for the U.S. government receiving a 15% cut of their revenues in the Asian country.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, meanwhile, recently announced plans to increase the firm’s U.S. investment commitment to $600 billion over the next four years. The move was widely seen as a bid to get the tech giant out of Trump’s crosshairs on tariffs — and appears to have worked for now.
Altogether, analysts say the deals show just how important it is for the world’s largest companies to find some tariff relief.
“The flurry of deal-making is an effort to secure lighter treatment from tariffs,” Paolo Pescatore, technology analyst at PP Foresight, told CNBC by email.
“In some shape or form, all of the big tech companies have been negatively impacted by tariffs. They can ill afford to fork out on millions of dollars in additional fees that will further dent profits as underlined by recent quarterly earnings,” Pescatore said.
While the devil will be in the detail of these agreements, Pescatore said that Apple leading the way with its accelerated U.S. investment will likely trigger “a domino effect” within the industry.
Apple, for its part, has long been regarded as one of the Big Tech firms most vulnerable to simmering trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
Earlier this month, Trump announced plans to impose a 100% tariff on imports of semiconductors and chips, albeit with an exemption for firms that are “building in the United States.”
Apple, which relies on hundreds of different chips for its devices and incurred $800 million in tariff costs in the June quarter, is among the firms exempt from the proposed tariffs.
A ‘hands-on’ approach
The Nvidia and AMD deal with the Trump administration has meanwhile sparked intense debate over the potential impact on the chip giants’ businesses and whether the U.S. government may seek out similar agreements with other firms.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that the legality and mechanics of the 15% export tax on Nvidia and AMD were “still being ironed out.” She also hinted deals of this kind could expand to other companies in future.
Ray Wang, founder and chairman of Constellation Research, described the Nvidia and AMD deal to pay 15% of China chip sales revenues to the U.S. government as “bizarre.”
Speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday, Wang said what is “really weird” is there is still some uncertainty over whether these chips represent a national security issue.
“If the answer is no, fine OK. The government is taking a cut out of it,” Wang said. “Both Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Lisa Su at AMD both decided that OK, we’ve got a way to get our chips into China and maybe there is something good coming out of it.”
Investor concerns
While investors initially welcomed the deal as broadly positive for both Nvidia and AMD, which once more secure access to the Chinese market, Wang said some in the industry will nevertheless be concerned.
“As an investor, you’re worried because then, is this an arbitrary decision by the government? Does every president get to play kingmaker in terms of these deals?” Wang said.
“So, I think that’s really what the concern is, and we still have additional tariffs and trade deals to come from the China negotiations,” he added.
Looking ahead, Dan Niles, founder and portfolio manager at Niles Investment Management, said the question for investors is whether the Trump administration’s “hands-on” approach is positive or negative for U.S. companies.
“I think for each company, it is very different. So, it certainly it is something I take into account. The bigger thing for me is do you have some stability of policy? Do you have a policy one week and then it flips the next?” Niles told CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” on Monday. “Right now, that is what concerns me a little bit more.”
— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal and Kif Leswing contributed to this report.
An independent contractor wearing a protective mask and gloves loads Amazon Prime grocery bags into a car outside a Whole Foods Market in Berkeley, California, on Oct. 7, 2020.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Amazon is rolling out same-day delivery of fresh foods to more pockets of the U.S. as it looks to encourage shoppers to add meat and eggs to their order while they’re browsing its sprawling online store.
The company announced Wednesday it’s bringing the service to more than 1,000 U.S. cities and towns, including Raleigh, North Carolina, Tampa, Florida, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with plans to reach at least 2,300 locations by the end of this year.
Amazon began testing the service in Phoenix last year and in additional cities this year, where it found shoppers frequently added strawberries, bananas, avocados and other perishables to their order.
“Many of these shoppers were first-time Amazon grocery customers who now return to shop twice as often with same-day delivery service compared to those who didn’t purchase fresh food,” the company said in a release.
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The service is free for Prime members on orders over $25 in most cities, or for a $2.99 fee if an order doesn’t meet that minimum. Shoppers without a Prime membership pay a $12.99 fee to use the service, regardless of order size.
Grocery delivery company Instacart‘s stock tumbled more than 11% following the announcement. Supermarket chains Kroger and Albertsons fell about 4% and 3%, respectively.
Shares of Walmart, which has been racing to compete with Amazon on speedy deliveries and offers same-day shipping for groceries, slipped 1%.
Amazon has been retooling its grocery business over the past few years.
The company has tweaked its chain of Fresh grocery stores in a bid to attract more shoppers, and it opened up fresh food delivery to shoppers who aren’t Prime members.
It’s also looked to highlight its growing business selling household staples like paper towels, cleaning supplies, bottled drinks and canned food.
In January, Amazon tapped Jason Buechel, the CEO of Whole Foods Market, the upscale grocer it acquired in 2017 for $13.7 billion, to lead its worldwide grocery stores business. Buechel announced in June that the company was bringing Whole Foods closer to the Amazon grocery umbrella as part of a reorganization.
Previously, Whole Foods had remained largely independent from Amazon’s own grocery offerings.