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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.”

Technology companies have flocked to the city to capitalize on those perks. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, is among the biggest.

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.

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SpaceX’s Starship explodes during routine test in Texas

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SpaceX's Starship explodes during routine test in Texas

A SpaceX Starship is seen in Boca Chica, Texas in 2023.

Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images

A SpaceX Starship rocket on Wednesday exploded at the Starbase facility in Texas during routine testing in preparation for a launch flight, according to local authorities and live stream footage.

The rocket “experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase” at 11 p.m. local time, SpaceX said on social media, noting “a safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted for.”

Local authorities said that Starship “suffered a catastrophic failure and exploded,” with no injuries reported at the time of writing and an investigation is now underway. Live stream footage of Starbase showed the rocket burst into flame, shooting a large fireball into the sky.

Another Starship launch was expected to take place by the end of this month.

It’s been a tempestuous ride for Elon Musk’s mammoth Starship, after three flight launch attempts devolved in fiery glory and air-traffic stopping debris this year to date. Notably, the rocket model has taken off successfully in previous instances, but its vast scale — standing 120 meters (394 feet) tall when factoring in the Super Heavy booster — has raised concerns over its overall reliability and requirements for orbital refueling once in flight.

Yet Musk has clinched his hopes on Starship as the key vehicle for both NASA’s third and fourth Artemis missions — part of a broader plan to return humans to the Moon — due to take place over 2027-2028. The rocket is also set to play a role in launching the Starlab private space station in the transition to commercial space orbiting labs once the International Space Station retires after 2030.

Critically, Starship is also central to Musk’s — and former ally U.S. President Donald Trump’s — broader ambitions to colonize Mars. The rocket is set to ferry Optimus robots to the red planet by the end of 2026, with Musk in March saying, “If those landings go well, then human landings may start as soon as 2029, although 2031 is more likely.”

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Apple looking to make ‘premium’ priced folding iPhones starting next year, analyst says

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Apple looking to make 'premium' priced folding iPhones starting next year, analyst says

People look at iPhones at the Apple Fifth Avenue store in New York City on May 23, 2025.

Adam Gray | Reuters

Apple has plans to make a folding iPhone starting next year, reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said on Wednesday.

Kuo said Apple’s folding phone could have a display made by Samsung Display, which is planning to produce as many as eight million foldable panels for the device next year. However, other components haven’t been finalized, including the device’s hinge, Kuo wrote. He expects it to have “premium pricing.”

Kuo is an analyst for TF International Securities, and focuses on the Asian electronics supply chain and often discusses Apple products before they’re launched.

He wrote in a post on social media site X that Apple’s plans for the foldable iPhone aren’t locked in yet and are subject to change. Apple did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Apple’s iPhone makes up over half of Apple’s business and remains an incredibly profitable product, accounting for $201 billion in sales in the company’s fiscal 2024. But iPhone revenue peaked in 2022, and Apple is constantly looking for ways to attract new customers and convince its current customers to upgrade to more expensive devices.

The Flex S is another concept device Samsung showed off at MWC. It folds in a more zigzag-like way to make an “S” shape.

Ryan Browne | CNBC

Several of Apple’s rivals, including Huawei and Samsung, have been releasing folding smartphones since 2019.

The devices promise the screen size of a tablet in a format that can be stored in pants pockets. But folding phones still have hardware issues, including creases in the display where it is folded.

Folding phones also have yet to prove they drive significant demand after the novelty wears off.

Research firm TrendForce said last year that only 1.5% of all smartphones sold can fold. Counterpoint, another research firm tracking smartphone sales, said earlier this year that the folding market only grew about 3% in 2024 and is expected to shrink in 2025.

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Scale AI not ‘winding down’ following Meta deal, interim CEO tells employees and customers

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Scale AI not 'winding down' following Meta deal, interim CEO tells employees and customers

FILE PHOTO: Jason Droege speaks at the WSJTECH live conference in Laguna Beach, California, U.S. October 22, 2019.

Mike Blake | Reuters

Scale AI’s Interim CEO Jason Droege said in a memo on Wednesday that the artificial intelligence startup is not changing course following Meta’s multibillion-dollar investment in the company last week.

“Unlike some other recent tech deals you might have heard about in the AI space, this is not a pivot or a winding down,” Droege wrote in a post directed at customers, employees and investors.

Meta has a 49% stake in Scale after its $14.3 billion investment, though the social media company will not have any voting power. Scale AI’s founder Alexandr Wang, along with a small number of other Scale employees, will join Meta as part of the agreement.

“Scale remains, unequivocally, an independent company,” Droege wrote. “This deal rewards many of the people who helped build Scale into what it is today, but more importantly to me, it’s also a validation of the course we’re on.”

Scale AI appointed Droege, the company’s chief strategy officer, to serve as its interim chief executive following the deal. Droege wrote that Scale AI is still “a well-resourced company” that has “multiple promising lines of business.”

Founded in 2016, Scale AI rose to prominence by helping major tech companies like OpenAI, Google and Microsoft prepare data they use to train cutting-edge AI models. Meta has been one of Scale AI’s biggest customers.

Droege said the company is “not slowing down” and remains committed to its data and application business units. Scale will also continue to be model agnostic, he added.

“The need for high-quality data for AI models remains significant, and with the largest network of experts training AI, we are set up well to help model builders keep pushing the frontier of what’s possible,” Droege wrote.

But some of Scale AI’s tech customers may be having doubts.

OpenAI confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday that it has been wrapping up its work with Scale AI over the past six to 12 months. The company said it’s looking to work with other data providers that have kept pace with innovation, and that its decision to wind down its work with Scale wasn’t influenced by the Meta partnership.

Google is also reportedly cutting ties with Scale following the company’s deal with Meta, according to a report from Reuters. Google declined to comment.

WATCH: Scale AI CEO departs for Meta in Zuckerberg’s latest AI gambit

Scale AI CEO departs for Meta in Zuckerberg’s latest AI gambit

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