Top Ten Enterprise Customers

6. Masdar

What isn't Masdar, the colloquial name of the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, doing? Various divisions of the far-flung enterprise are buying factory-in-a-box solar systems from Applied Materials, working with MIT and NYU to set up universities in the Middle East, building net zero energy communities complete with solar energy and waste-to-energy plants, and erecting solar thermal farms. This is nation building with a checkbook. Desalination?  Nah. Instead, Masdar City will recycle 60 percent of its water (see Masdar Heats Up Concentrating Solar and Masdar Breaks Ground on $230M Solar Factory).  

Masdar ultimately has two aims: to develop a sustainable energy industry to supplement and ultimately replace the fossil fuel industry as oil reserves decline. Second, Abu Dhabi hopes to raise a professional class of engineers, lawyers and financial advisors from the countries around the Middle East. Sadly, the region's businesses are still largely run by foreigners, which creates a whole host of social problems.

The big question mark is whether 2008's decline in oil prices and worldwide credit crunch will squeeze the effort. Abu Dhabi hasn't been hit nearly as hard as nearby Dubai, but it's still not the best time to build a country.

Honorable mention: Singapore. An Asian nation with high labor rates, Singapore wants to be a giant in intellectual property and is doing so by recruiting professors from MIT and the UC System. It already has a medical school built by Duke.