Virginia; Ohio; South Carolina; Mexico; Great Lakes; Automotive; Memphis; Kentucky; Robot Leaders; Italian
Sent: 5/12/2025 9:22:02 AM
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Subject: Virginia; Ohio; South Carolina; Mexico; Great Lakes; Automotive; Memphis; Kentucky; Robot Leaders; Italian
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PROJECT BULLETIN
Prince George, Virginia; Warren, Ohio and Beech Island, South Carolina; Queretaro, Mexico
LEGO builds out its supply chain in Virginia; Kimberly-Clark will invest more than $2 billion in Ohio and South Carolina. ODATA reaches
a milestone with its $3 billion data center campus in Mexico.
Read More >>>>
FROM SITE SELECTION MAGAZINE, MAY 2025 ISSUE
GREAT LAKES
Data Centers Are Increasing in the Great Lakes at What Cost?
Helena Volzer, senior source water policy manager at the Alliance for the Great Lakes, considers a fundamental question facing the
region with the world’s largest supply of surface freshwater.
Read More >>>>
NORTH AMERICAN AUTOMOTIVE
Electrification Accelerates Stateside
A visit to BMW’s South Carolina plant and some choice words defending that site’s economic development impact headline Alexis
Elmore’s report on a sector befuddled by tariffs but moving forward with projects nevertheless.
Read More >>>>
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
Hyosung Heavy Industries is expanding transformer manufacturing capacity at this Memphis plant not far from where xAI
needs a transformer for its giant data center.
Photo courtesy of Hyosung
Observers continue to watch with fascination and/or concern over power and water as xAI, the artificial intelligence company led by
Elon Musk, moves forward with Colossus, a data center campus in Memphis that Musk has said will eventually be the largest
supercomputer in the world. Where exactly is it located? On a site formerly occupied by Electrolux at Frank C. Pidgeon Industrial Park
in the city’s Boxtown neighborhood. Site Selection saluted the Electrolux plant as a 2010 Top Deal of the Year after the company
moved the operation there from Quebec.
One aspect of the xAI project, Bill McKibben reported in The New Yorker last week, is the offer by the company to build a needed
transformer itself because of a current shortage of transformers. Site Selection in March 2011 chronicled a major investment by
Mitsubishi Electric Power Products Inc. (MEPPI) in a new transformer manufacturing facility just east of the Electrolux site. MEPPI in
December 2019 announced the sale of the facility to Hyosung Heavy Industries, which two months ago announced it would invest
hundreds of millions of dollars to double the transformer plant’s capacity. Because of investments by Hyosung, SK Innovation and
others, the Greater Memphis Chamber and Memphis in May International Festival in December announced South Korea as the 2025
honored country.
KENTUCKY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE 2025
DISTRIBUTION & LOGISTICS
The Logical Location For Logistics HIGHER EDUCATION
Why did more than two dozen companies announce more The Business of Education
than $860 million in logistics-related facilities in Kentucky in
From technical schools to major universities, the higher education
2024? Unparalleled waterway, rail, highway and cargo
system in Kentucky prepares and equips the workforce of
airport infrastructure might have something to do with it.
tomorrow.
Read More >>>>
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SITE SELECTION RECOMMENDS
Photo courtesy of IFR
The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) last Thursday announced that automotive manufacturers in the United States last year
increased industrial robot installations by 10.7% to reach 13,700 units in 2024. “The United States has one of the most automated car
industries in the world: The ratio of robots to factory workers ranks fifth, tied with Japan and Germany and ahead of China,” said IFR
President Takayuki Ito. “This is a great achievement of modernization. However, in other key areas of manufacturing automation, the
U.S. lags behind its competitors.”
In China, the IFR explained in a release, “robotics and automation are penetrating all levels of production. This is evidenced by its high
robot density of 470 robots per 10,000 employees in manufacturing — the third highest in the world, surpassing Germany and Japan in
2023. The United States, on the other hand, ranks only 10th among the world’s most automated manufacturing countries with a robot
density of 295 robots per 10,000 employees. The country’s automation is heavily concentrated in the car sector: Around 40% of all new
industrial robot installations in 2024 are in automotive.”
Graph courtesy of IFR
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Photo courtesy of the European Union
European Council President António Costa last week visited a Leonardo manufacturing site in Campi Bisenzio, just outside of Florence,
Italy, calling the aerospace, cybersecurity and defense company a good example of “how a company that invests on innovation can
deliver products and services that strengthen our common security.” Costa further emphasized that it was “also important for the policy
makers to listen to the people on the ground. To listen to mayors, leaders of regions, but also to the companies to design our policy
better.”
The Conway Projects Database (subscribe here) has tracked nine projects from Leonardo over the past eight years in Italy, the UK,
Alabama, Arizona and Florida.
Conway Data, Inc. | 6625 The Corners Parkway, Suite 200, Peachtree Corners, GA 30092
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