Also, doesn't chip manufacturing require a lot of water? Water is not the first thing that comes to mind when I hear Arizona. I think I'm about to learn a lot with this.
Yes, ~10 million gallons per day (equivalent to 33,000 households). But the plant's water recycling and re-use is very efficient, so it's mostly a one-time hit up front.
From what I read the overriding factor was geological stability. Apparently these factories are very sensitive to vibrations. I guess when you do precision work at nanometer scale these things matter.
Arizona isn't water rich, but it manages to keep the 4 million people around Phoenix hydrated, so there is water.
It's notoriously unsustainable. Those water intensive crops would be wildly infeasible if the farmers had to pay anything close to a market price for the obscene amounts of limited water they consume.
