The worldwide contest for foreign capital is increasingly settled inside chip fabrication plants, electric-vehicle factories and the advanced-manufacturing corridors that feed the technology economy. By that measure, the United States is not just competing. It is leading the field.
American soil attracted $279 billion in foreign direct investment in 2024, the most recent full year of federal data, more than double the $116 billion that landed in China and more than Singapore and Hong Kong combined. The tally comes from a new analysis by the law firm Becker & Poliakoff, which drew on figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, UN Trade and Development and fDi Markets to map where overseas money is flowing and why.
For anyone tracking communications and technology, the story lives in the details. Texas finished first among the states with $22.8 billion in new investment, a position built largely on Samsung’s roughly $45 billion semiconductor expansion. That single commitment plants one of the planet’s largest chipmakers deeper into the domestic supply chain at the exact moment that silicon underpins everything from 5G buildouts and data centers to the surging demand for artificial-intelligence compute.
When a fab rises in central Texas, the ripple reaches every carrier, cloud operator and device maker that depends on a steady flow of chips.
Georgia took the No. 2 spot with $16.3 billion, a striking result for the eighth-most-populous state. Its rise traces back to the electric-vehicle manufacturing push led by Hyundai and Kia, the kind of capital-heavy, technology-dense project that increasingly defines where foreign investors plant their flags.
California, a perennial technology magnet, ranked third at $12.9 billion, followed by Ohio at $7.6 billion and North Carolina and Massachusetts, each at $5.6 billion. Florida, New York, Virginia and Washington rounded out the top 10.
Manufacturing remains the gravitational center of all this activity. The sector held a cumulative $2.4 trillion FDI position in 2024, more than double the next-closest category, a reminder that the factories now being financed are rarely low-tech assembly halls. They are semiconductor lines, battery plants and precision facilities that demand engineers, robotics and the connectivity to run them.
The labor payoff shows up unevenly across the map. South Carolina leads the nation in dependence on foreign-owned employers, with 8% of all jobs in the state tied to majority foreign-owned companies, the highest share anywhere in the country.
Nationally, majority foreign-owned firms support roughly 15 million American jobs, a workforce that stretches well beyond the factory floor into research, logistics and the technology services that keep modern plants humming.
Where the money originates is shifting as well. Japan has overtaken Canada as America’s largest single investor, lifting its cumulative position from $694 billion in 2020 to $819 billion in 2024, just ahead of Canada’s $812 billion. Japanese capital has long favored automotive and electronics, two industries converging fast around software, sensors and connected systems.
The stakes reach past job counts and ribbon-cuttings. Becker & Poliakoff frames the FDI race as a contest with geopolitical weight, arguing that a steady inflow of foreign money reinforces the dollar’s standing as the world’s reserve currency, strengthens Washington’s leverage to impose sanctions and helps set the terms of the global economy. For a technology sector that runs on dollar-denominated contracts and globe-spanning supply chains, that dominance is less an abstraction than an operating condition.
What the data ultimately sketches is an investment landscape redrawn by technology itself. The states climbing the rankings are the ones winning chip plants and EV lines, and the industries pulling the most foreign capital are the ones building the physical backbone of a connected world. The race for foreign investment, increasingly, is a race for technological capacity, and for now the United States holds the lead.
