Most people think of Fujifilm as a camera or film company, but that’s not their main business, and it hasn’t been for awhile now. When film sales collapsed on the early 2000’s, Fujifilm diversified into many different industries: medical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, tech, and chemicals. While photography is a big part of Fujifilm’s heritage and identity, it is only a small part of their company overall nowadays.

At a recent photowalk, someone asked me if I had seen a large building in Mesa, Arizona, with Fujifilm’s name on the side, and wondered if I knew what it was for. I hadn’t seen it, and I had no idea what it was for. I didn’t think much about it, but then it showed up in my news feed. Curiosity got the better of me, so I did a little research. Fujifilm Electronic Materials in Mesa, is quietly an industrial powerhouse. The facility is not dedicated to film or sensors, but to the ultra-pure chemicals that make modern semiconductors possible. It’s a different side of Fujifilm, one that most photographers never hear about. Yet this plant plays a key role in the digital world.

Inside the Mesa facility, Fujifilm produces high-purity solvents, developers, cleaning agents, and slurries used by chip fabricators to polish, pattern, and prepare silicon wafers. These aren’t camera-sensor chemicals specifically; they’re the chemicals needed for nearly every chip you can imagine: CPUs, GPUs, memory, mobile processors, automotive controllers, and, yes, even camera sensors (although only indirectly). Fujifilm is one of a couple handful of companies that supply ultra-clean chemistry for chip manufacturing, and one of a few in Arizona.

Fujifilm expanded the Mesa site only a few years ago, and they’re planning to significantly expand again, due to exploding demand for semiconductors. The CHIPS Act, combined with billions of dollars in private investment, has turned Arizona into one of the fastest-growing semiconductor hubs in the world. Intel has a large footprint, including the massive Ocotillo campus in Chandler. TSMC is building multiple fabrication plants in Phoenix, including a huge campus in north Phoenix. Amkor, Microchip, and more are found in the area. All those fabricators need chemicals—lot’s of chemicals—and Fujifilm is scaling up to meet that demand.

To me, Arizona seems like an odd choice for chip manufacturing. It’s a desert, which means it’s hot and dry, and water is somewhat scarce. Apparently the reasons why Arizona is booming for this industry are available land, business-friendly environments, stable geology, talent (ASU, UofA, and other universities nearby), and—perhaps counterintuitively—the water situation, which is extremely controlled and can support the ultra-pure water required. The dry climate helps with contamination control, and the lack of natural disasters is apparently a big appeal. What was once a small tech outpost has been growing into a full-blown semiconductor ecosystem. Arizona is apparently a new Silicon Valley.

For photographers, this might feel like a distant subject, yet it’s a big part of the larger Fujifilm story: a diverse and resilient company that would not likely be making cameras today if not for things like high-purity solvent manufacturing for microchips. While we’re out with our X100VI or X-T5, Fujifilm is making the unseen materials that help power the digital world our pictures live in. If you happen to pass by that building in Mesa, Arizona, with Fujifilm’s name on the side, you’ll see a facility that helps to shape the silicon heartbeat of modern technology. It’s another reminder that Fujifilm is bigger than cameras. Sometimes the most important parts of a story happen in places we don’t expect.