Austin, Texas
The Greater Austin metropolitan statistical area had a gross domestic product (GDP) of $86 billion in 2010. Austin is considered to be a major center for high tech. Thousands of graduates each year from the engineering and computer science programs at the University of Texas at Austin provide a steady source of employees that help to fuel Austin's technology and defense industry sectors. The region's rapid growth has led "Forbes" to rank the Austin metropolitan area number one among all big cities for jobs for 2012 in their annual survey and WSJ Marketwatch to rank the area number one for growing businesses. By 2013, Austin was ranked No. 14 on "Forbes"' list of the Best Places for Business and Careers (directly below Dallas, No. 13 on the list). As a result of the high concentration of high-tech companies in the region, Austin was strongly affected by the dot-com boom in the late 1990s and subsequent bust. Austin's largest employers include the Austin Independent School District, the City of Austin, Dell, the U.S. Federal Government, NXP Semiconductors, IBM, St. David's Healthcare Partnership, Seton Family of Hospitals, the State of Texas, the Texas State University, and the University of Texas at Austin.
Economy of Columbus, Ohio
Other medical operations in the area include the Fortune 500 company Cardinal Health, which has its headquarters in the Columbus suburb of Dublin (Cardinal was originally based in Columbus). The Ross Products Division of Abbott Laboratories, makers of Ensure nutritional drink and Similac infant formula, is headquartered in Columbus, with over 7,000 employees.Columbus has routinely been ranked No. 1 as the most up and coming technological city in America, aided by Battelle Memorial Institute, created in the 1920s by industrialist Gordon Battelle. Central Connecticut State University ranked Columbus No. 8 in the nation for Internet literacy in 2005, but by 2008 the city had slipped to No. 21. In 2009, Forbes ranked Columbus as the 29th most wired city in the country.
Columbus is home to the Ohio Supercomputer Center, founded in 1987, and located on the Ohio State University campus. It is available to research scientists, focusing on bio and data science, advanced materials, and engineering research. 1,850 miles of network infrastructure is utilized by the center through OARNet, providing internet access to over two million Ohioans as well as colleges and universities. The OSC partners with the U.S. Department of Defense, Education, and Energy, as well as the Air Force Research Laboratory, NASA, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories, among other institutions.
Many technology companies either call Columbus home or have significant operations in the area. The first major commercial Internet service provider in the United States, CompuServe, still has its roots in Columbus, although it has been owned by AOL since 1998. They started in Columbus in 1969 and first offered Internet service in 1979 with electronic mail services. Chemical Abstracts Service is located just north of the OSU campus, and is the "world's foremost clearinghouse for chemical research".