Tempe is Becoming the Heart of Arizona's Silicon Oasis

By Kyle Macdonald, COO of Silicon Oasis

Avnet’s move into its new global headquarters in Tempe is more than a corporate real estate story. It adds another major technology company to what has quietly become one of the densest concentrations of technology companies and talent in Arizona.

For years, one of Greater Phoenix’s strengths has also been one of its challenges: we are incredibly spread out.

Unlike San Francisco, New York or Seattle, where generations of technology companies, founders, investors and talent have concentrated within relatively tight geographic areas, Greater Phoenix’s innovation economy stretches across dozens of miles.

We have major technology companies in Chandler, startups in Scottsdale, semiconductor manufacturing in the West Valley, founders across Phoenix, research institutions throughout the region and emerging clusters from Mesa to the East Valley.

That growth is significant, but dispersion comes with a cost.

There is a density flywheel that happens when founders, engineers, investors, researchers and major technology companies repeatedly collide with each other. A coffee meeting turns into an introduction. An employee leaves a large technology company and starts something new. An investor meets a founder at an event down the street. University research becomes a startup. Successful founders reinvest capital and experience into the next generation.

The more concentrated those interactions become, the faster the flywheel can turn.

Tempe has an opportunity to create that density for Arizona.

The foundation is Arizona State University, which provides something few cities can replicate: a massive concentration of students, researchers, engineers, entrepreneurs and intellectual property.

Around it, an increasingly impressive technology cluster has emerged.

The Tempe technology ecosystem

Companies headquartered or operating in Tempe include:

• Avnet

• Carvana

• Cognite

• First Solar

• Insight Enterprises

• Benchmark Electronics

• Align Technology

• Amkor Technology

• Wealth.com

• Basata

• Uplinq

• Trainual

• MyBrandForce

• Isos Technology

• ProPlaintiff.ai

• ConnectionAI

• HAMMOQ

• Shilo AI

• Anton Intelligence

• Erthos

• SOURCE Global

• Solestial

• Advent Diamond

• Beyond Silicon

• EyeTech Digital Systems

• PADT

• Purity Resource

• LifeGuides

• OncoMyx Therapeutics

• Sonoran Biosciences

• CyMedica Orthopedics

• Life365

• Panoramic Health

• StateServ

• RunBuggy

• Unlock

• Waltz

• US Digital Designs

• PCT International

And I know we are missing some.

The point isn't simply that Tempe has a lot of technology companies. It's that they are increasingly concentrated around ASU, Tempe Town Lake, downtown Tempe and the surrounding employment corridors.

Arizona should continue building technology clusters across the entire state. Chandler’s semiconductor ecosystem, Scottsdale’s software and fintech community, Phoenix’s startup and infrastructure growth, Mesa’s advanced manufacturing base and Tucson’s deep-tech ecosystem are all important pieces of the Silicon Oasis.

But we also need places where those pieces physically come together.

That may be Tempe’s biggest opportunity.

If we intentionally create more spaces, events, capital networks and founder communities around this existing concentration, Tempe can generate more of the organic collisions that have historically benefited places like San Francisco, New York and Seattle.

The Silicon Oasis is statewide. But every great ecosystem needs places where the density becomes impossible to ignore. Tempe has the ingredients to become one of those places.

Avnet — New corporate headquarters announcement:
https://news.avnet.com/news-blog/news-blog-details/2026/Avnet-moves-in-to-new-corporate-headquarters-in-Tempe-2026-eEo6oRmiML/default.aspx

Phoenix Business Journal — Avnet moves into 156,000-square-foot Tempe office:
https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2026/09/22/avnet-moves-into-new-tempe-hq.html