Contribution short abstract

Between 2020 and now, U.S. industrial priorities have shifted from energy transition to AI. Regardless, semiconductor production is a priority. I investigate efforts to "make the desert bloom" — transforming Arizona into the Silicon Desert— and associated spatial rearrangements of labor and capital.

Contribution long abstract

In this paper, I analyze the transformation of the Phoenix metropolitan area into the Silicon Desert as an extension of "arid empire". This transformation ensures America's place in the global chip race with China. Historically, making Arizona's desert bloom was the focus of "arid empire". "Arid lands expertise" was utilized in imperial expansion westward, and later worldwide (Koch, 2022). I investigate the Southwestern desert as a geographical periphery 'ripe' for the necessary spatial rearrangements of labor and capital to best serve differing factions of the capitalist class.

Lydia Jennings' forthcoming paper investigates the shifting interests of the American ruling class from energy transition to A.I. I use her work as a frame to interrogate how Arizona's 'empty landscape' is envisioned as a desert laboratory to produce faster and more complex chips for semiconductor onshoring efforts. Initially, onshoring was intended to support the green energy reindustrialization of the U.S. Now, the focus of Arizona's chip production is American success in the A.I. race.

Yet, the desert is far from empty. Workers — immigrants shipped in from Taiwan, refugees from Latin America, and Black and first-gen Latino youth — have been brought together in America's biggest foreign direct investment to date, a Taiwanese chip fabrication plant worth $168 billion, to serve onshoring efforts. Already, contestations have emerged between American workers and foreign management discipline. I analyze these efforts to investigate possibilities for global worker solidarity in the desert and the futility of organizing around the identity of the American worker.