Tech effect: Arizona’s thriving software and optics industries

If you grew up in Arizona, the Five C’s of Arizona — copper, cattle, cotton, citrus and climate — have been drilled into your head as the first mainstays of Arizona’s economy since elementary school.

Arizona’s economic base has morphed over the years, transitioning into a more knowledge-based economy. In the 1990s, after an economic analysis of the state’s main industries Arizona found itself as home to two technology-based high-wage industries: software development and optics and photonics.

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