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.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos leaves Aman Venice hotel, on the second day of the wedding festivities of Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez, in Venice, Italy, June 27, 2025.
Yara Nardi | Reuters
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos unloaded more than 3.3 million shares of his company in a sale valued at roughly $736.7 million, according to a financial filing on Tuesday.
The stock sale is part of a previously arranged trading plan adopted by Bezos in March. Under that arrangement, Bezos plans to sell up to 25 million shares of Amazon over a period ending May 29, 2026.
Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021 but remains chairman, has been selling stock in the company at a regular clip in recent years, though he’s still the largest individual shareholder. He adopted a similar trading plan in February 2024 to sell up to 50 million shares of Amazon stock through late January of this year.
Bezos previously said he’d sell about $1 billion in Amazon stock each year to fund his space exploration company, Blue Origin. He’s also donated shares to Day 1 Academies, his nonprofit that’s building a chain of Montessori-inspired preschools across several states.
The most recent stock sale comes after Bezos and Lauren Sanchez tied the knot last week in a lavish wedding in Venice. The star-studded celebration, which took place over three days and sparked protests from some local residents, was estimated to cost around $50 million.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai addresses the crowd during Google’s annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California on May 20, 2025.
Camille Cohen | AFP | Getty Images
The Google Doodle is Alphabet’s most valuable piece of real estate, and on Tuesday, the company used that space to promote “AI Mode,” its latest AI search product.
Google’s Chrome browser landing pages and Google’s home page featured an animated image that, when clicked, leads users to AI Mode, the company’s latest search product. The doodle image also includes a share button.
The promotion of AI Mode on the Google Doodle comes as the tech company makes efforts to expose more users to its latest AI features amid pressure from artificial intelligence startups. That includes OpenAI which makes ChatGPT, Anthropic which makes Claude and Perplexity AI, which bills itself as an “AI-powered answer engine.”
Google’s “Doodle” Tuesday directed users to its search chatbot-like experience “AI Mode”
AI Mode is Google’s chatbot-like experience for complex user questions. The company began displaying AI Mode alongside its search results page in March.
“Search whatever’s on your mind and get AI-powered responses,” the product description reads when clicked from the home page.
AI Mode is powered by Google’s flagship AI model Gemini, and the tool has rolled out to more U.S. users since its launch. Users can ask AI Mode questions using text, voice or images. Google says AI Mode makes it easier to find answers to complex questions that might have previously required multiple searches.
In May, Google tested the AI Mode feature directly beneath the Google search bar, replacing the “I’m Feeling Lucky” widget — a place where Google rarely makes changes.
Disposable diapers are a massive environmental offender. Roughly 300,000 of them are sent to landfills or incinerated every minute, according to the World Economic Forum, and they take hundreds of years to decompose. It’s a $60 billion business.
One alternative approach has been compostable diapers, which can be made out of wood pulp or bamboo. But composting services aren’t universally available and some of the products are less absorbent than normal nappies, critics say.
A growing number of parents are also turning to cloth diapers, but they only make up about 20% of the U.S. market.
ZymoChem is attacking the diaper problem from a different angle. Harshal Chokhawala, CEO of ZymoChem, said that 60% to 80% of a typical diaper consists of fossil-based plastics. And half of that is an ingredient called super absorbent polymer, or SAP.
“What we have created is a low carbon footprint bio-based and biodegradable version of this super absorbent polymer,” Chokhawala said.
ZymoChem, with operations in San Leandro, California, and Burlington, Vermont, invented this new type of absorbent by using a fermentation process to convert a renewable resource — sugar — from corn into biodegradable materials. It’s similar to making beer.
“We’re at a point now where we’re very close to being at cost parity with fossil based manufacturing of super absorbents,” said Chokhawala.
The company’s drop-in absorbents can be added into other diapers, which makes it different from environmentally conscious companies like Charlie Banana, Kudos and Hiro, which sell their own brand of diapers.
ZymoChem doesn’t yet have a diaper product on the market. But Lindy Fishburne, managing partner at Breakout Ventures and an investor in the company, says it’s a scalable model.
“Being able to build and grow with biology allows us to unlock a circular economy and a supply chain that is no longer petro-derived, which opens up the opportunities of where you can manufacture and how you secure supply chains,” Fishburne said.
Other investors include Toyota Ventures, GS Futures, KDT Ventures, Cavallo Ventures and Lululemon. The company has raised a total of $35 million.
The Lululemon partnership shows that it’s not just about diapers. ZymoChem’s bio-based materials can also be used in other hygiene products and in bio-based nylon. Lululemon recently said it will use it in some of its leggings, which were traditionally made with petroleum.