4th Industrial Revolution
St. Louis Geospatial Intelligence Sector Is Emerging As A New Opportunity For Site Selectors, Companies, And Investors
The Louisville and St. Louis metro areas have long been complementary Southern and Midwest centers of commerce and industry — with Louisville’s top industry sectors focusing on Health Care/Aging Innovation, Business Services, Logistics/E-Commerce, Advanced Manufacturing, and Food/Beverages.
While the St. Louis region’s leading industries include Aviation and Other Advanced Manufacturing, BioMed/Life Sciences/Medical Research, Plant Sciences/Ag Tech, FinTech, Beverage and Food Manufacturing, and Transportation/Distribution/Logistics.
In the past several years, however, a relatively new “cross-cutting” industry sector — Geospatial and Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) — has emerged in St. Louis, in which the region today aspires to become a Global Geospatial Intelligence Hub.
Back in 2016, World Economic Forum Founder and Chairman Klaus Schwab described “The Fourth Industrial Revolution: What It Means, How to Respond.”
Schwab observed, “We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. Its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before,” suggesting that unlike the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Industrial Revolutions, there are unique aspects to this 4th Industrial Revolution: its velocity, scope, systems impact, focused on an exponential pace of change. He felt this 4th Industrial Revolution is disrupting almost every industry in every country.
Believe it is for this reason, that this relatively obscure, this FDI Innovation District has now evolved into the densest and boldest capacities inherent in the Geospatial and Geospatial Intelligence sector.
Quantifying this rapidly growing sector, this past year, Geospatial World’s annual “Global Geospatial Industry Outlook” noted that the diverse segments of the thriving worldwide geospatial industry, depicted in this chart, are projected to grow to $1.44 trillion by 2030.
The Report concludes that, close advancing and augmenting the projected $1.44 trillion Geospatial Market by 2030 are strategic public policy reforms, industry acceleration strategies, and innovations in the digital twin and metaverse preparation.
The GeoBiz Report further notes that Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and Positioning is projected to be the largest share of this fast-emerging global industry — growing 13% with 55.4% CAGR.
The multiplied sources and impacts of geospatial technologies are forecast to contribute at least $5.4 trillion in 2025.
In this context that St. Louis is building on its long-standing strengths in leading its regional MedTech, AgTech, and other areas of this growing and thriving $1.44 trillion market.
As Dr. Patricia Mooradian of Techonomy Partners, commented at the opening night panel of the series St. Louis Geospatial market, “along 10-year trends and data showing that St. Louis clearly possesses an extensive base of global innovation leaders and a competitive edge for the region to compete for its global leadership in the area of emerging innovation economies.”
Two existing National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) federal facilities, NGA West, and its $1.75 billion new HQ in north St. Louis, make this a cornerstone of St. Louis’ largest employment sector.
Construction is now underway on a new $1.75 billion state-of-the-art “Next National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA)” to be their western headquarters, just north of downtown St. Louis, to be fully operational by 2027. It is located on 100 acres at the heart of the 1,500-acre multi-billion-dollar private sector NorthSide Regeneration Mixed-Use District.
The current St. Louis geospatial industry supports 27,000 direct and indirect jobs and includes over 350 companies and organizations, and currently produces a nearly $5 billion economic impact;
St. Louis’ historic concentration of Fortune 1000 headquarters is complemented by major St. Louis-based companies such as Bayer Crop Science, Boeing, Enterprise Holdings, BJC Healthcare, and others, which are extending major new investments in geospatial modeling, in national security, precision agriculture, transportation and logistics, and health care;
The region’s universities conduct tens of millions annually in research advancing geospatial-related fields and are growing new educational programs in these and geospatial-related special degree fields — dramatically enhanced in the past year by the creation of the 8-university consortium in the recently rebranded T-REX Geospatial Institute including a multi-use regional hub for access to advanced tools and technology powered by big data analytics, computing resources, and collaborative research in the training focus around Food Security, Core Geospatial Science & Computation, Geospatial Health, and National Security.
And, an emerging new Urban Innovation District in the Heart of North America — the Downtown North Insight District, in the northern portion of the Central Business District, and just several blocks from both NorthSide Regeneration and the new NGA HQ. This new Innovation District proposes to parallel the success of the 20-year old CORTEX Life Sciences District, a few short towns:
In addition to the adaptive reuse of the former HQ of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper by Square (now Block) Co-Founder Jim McKelvey and his real estate development partner, John Berglund, to accommodate up to 1,400 employees at Square/Block, and the T-REX technology incubator (also the location of NGA’s new 75,000 square foot Downtown North Insight District’s anchor tenant), the renovation of the new 720,000 SF Deco Globe Building, whose dramatic high-tech renovation has led observers to call it the “High-Tech Castle.”
The Globe Building
The Globe Building named “Development of the Year”: https://www.stlmag.com/public-guide/blake-summerland-st-louis-development-of-the-year/
The high-tech design and renovation of The Globe Building has made it home to a host of other St. Louis regional and national tech companies — MAXAR, General Dynamics, Ball Aerospace, Geospatial World, and T-Kartor from Sweden, among others — along with local MedTech leader Stereotaxis — and it being named “Development of the Year in St. Louis for 2022.”
Uniquely, the unique 75,000 square foot floor plates in its core also include the largest multi-tenant SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) facility in the nation outside of the D.C. area — prompting demand from innovation urban and global employers for GEOINT firms and firms hoping to locate in St. Louis.
Appears St. Louis’ emergence as a Global GEOINT Hub — the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) has chosen it to hold its 3,500-attendee annual international Symposium in St. Louis in 2021, 2023, and 2025 — this year’s Symposium, “From Mars to Metaverse,” is May 21-24: https://usgif.org/event/geoint-2023-symposium-from-mars-to-metaverse/
Bottom line: as both Louisville and St. Louis continue to proactively develop their respective established and trending industry clusters, St. Louis has added Geospatial Intelligence to complement its economic and entrepreneurial development menu.
We encourage site selectors, investors, and companies to “Meet Us in St. Louis.”
