ASU -- Arizona State University Center -- Will Develop Its Eighth Arizona "Innovation Center" -- To Be Near TSMC's $165 Billion Plant -- April 5, 2026

From The Arizona Republic, April 5, 2026.

Ari­zona State Uni­versity will develop its eighth Ari­zona “innov­a­tion zone,” an area that will be devoted to inter­na­tional sci­ence and col­lab­or­a­tion, near the Taiwan Semi­con­ductor Man­u­fac­tur­ing Co. facil­ity in north Phoenix.

The current seven Arizona "innovation zones": 

ASU Pres­id­ent Michael Crow called the $165 bil­lion TSMC plant near Inter­state 17 and Loop 303 the “single most import­ant tech­no­lo­gical oppor­tun­ity in Ari­zona since air con­di­tion­ing.”

“We are going to con­cen­trate an innov­a­tion dis­trict there that’s linked to this inter­na­tional sci­ence and tech­no­logy com­munity,” Crow said.

The uni­versity appoin­ted Grace O’Sul­li­van as vice pres­id­ent of TSMC.

Part­ner­ship Ini­ti­at­ives, and she works closely with TSMC and semi­con­ductor industry sup­pli­ers to address their needs for work­force, research and uni­versity part­ner­ships.

O’Sul­li­van said she is work­ing with Crow and other ASU lead­ers to design the innov­a­tion zone, called the Inter­na­tional Sci­ence Zone.

“We really see Ari­zona as becom­ing that global land­ing spot,” she said about the area’s abil­ity to attract inter­na­tional com­pan­ies.

The innov­a­tion zone will give ASU an oppor­tun­ity to cre­ate an advanced teach­ing and learn­ing cen­ter and joint aca­demic cen­ters with inter­na­tional uni­versit­ies, O’Sul­li­van said.

The zone will also have space for star­tup incub­a­tion, which O’Sul­li­van said is a gap in the mar­ket for advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing and tech­no­logy com­pan­ies. The zone could also include other edu­ca­tional entit­ies like com­munity col­leges or K-12 schools, along with other facil­it­ies the com­munity desires, like recre­ation.

“We want to cre­ate a hol­istic work­force devel­op­ment sys­tem,” she said.

The uni­versity will need “quite a bit of ter­rit­ory” for the zone and that it is “look­ing every­where” for land but Crow did not con­firm a spe­cific loc­a­tion.

Crow said the uni­versity is mov­ing at “flank speed” on get­ting the innov­a­tion zone going, a naut­ical phrase mean­ing as fast as the boat can go.

ASU has seven other “innov­a­tion zones,” which are des­ig­nated areas where the uni­versity has oper­a­tions along­side private busi­nesses. Those loc­a­tions include three nearby the main cam­pus in Tempe: The Novus Innov­a­tion Cor­ridor, ASU Research Park and SkySong in south Scott­s­dale.

The other Ari­zona innov­a­tion zones are the Dis­cov­ery Oasis Health Futures Cen­ter near the Mayo Clinic in north Phoenix, the Phoenix Bios­cience Core in down­town Phoenix, the ASU Mesa Cen­ter for Cre­at­ive Tech­no­logy in down­town Mesa, the ASU Poly­tech­nic Innov­a­tion Zone in Mesa and the ASU West Val­ley Innov­a­tion Zone in west Phoenix.

Cor­ina Vanek cov­ers devel­op­ment for The Ari­zona Repub­lic. Reach her at cvanek@ari­zon­are­pub­lic.com. Fol­low her on X @Cor­inaVanek.