Boise #5 for innovation in Verizon’s national list

The Boise metro area is one of the best in the country for innovation, taking the #5 spot in new rankings from Verizon.

To come up with the list, Verizon looked at the number of patents produced in a city compared to its population. Overall, the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California metropolitan statistical area came out on top.

In its entry on Boise-Nampa, Verizon notes that “it’s not called Treasure Valley for nothing.”

“Boise is home to Micron, a company responsible for creating dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) computer chips for personal electronic devices,” Verizon said in a press release. “It’s one of only three companies in the world that specializes in DRAM, and the only one based domestically. Factor all of that into the city’s economic trajectory, and things are looking golden around these parts.”

The Western states dominate Verizon’s list: seven of the 10 ranked cities are west of the Rocky Mountains, with Bay Area cities claiming three spots.

“Is it any wonder that Silicon Valley itself tops this list?” Verizon said in a press release. “Most patents produced around here during the aforementioned time period were labeled under the class ‘Multiplex Communications,’ which consists of methods of sending and receiving signals such as those from radio and mobile phones. And here’s an interesting tidbit: of all of the recently established tech companies, over 40 percent have at least one immigrant on their founding teams. The flourishing diversity in this region is proving itself to be a force for incredible innovation, with only more to come.”

Verizon’s Top 10 Metro Areas for Innovation

1.      San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
2.      Corvallis, OR
3.      Burlington-South Burlington, VT
4.      Boulder, CO
5.      Boise City-Nampa, ID
6.      Bremerton-Silverdale, WA
7.      Rochester, MN
8.      Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA
9.      Ann Arbor, MI
10.   San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA