Central New York Business Journal

MARCY — Look out Silicon Valley, Route 128 in Boston, and Triangle Research Park. Phase-I construction of the Computer Chip Commercialization Center (known to all as Quad C) will be completed in the first quarter of this year, inaugurating the $1.5 billion Nano Utica Initiative launched by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2011.

Nano is the moniker commonly used for nanotechnology and nanoscience, the study and application of extremely small things that can be used in scientific fields, such as chemistry, biology, physics, materials science, and engineering. “Small,” in this instance, means the manipulation of atoms and molecules. For those who are numerically inclined, a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter; or 25,400,000 nanometers equal an inch. If you are not into numbers, consider this: If a marble were a nanometer, then one meter would be the size of the planet earth. Scientists and engineers are making materials on a nanoscale level to take advantage of properties such as higher strength, lighter weight, control of the light spectrum, and greater chemical reactivity.

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