Community Data Report Beginning in the 1950s with Texas Instruments, major multi-national businesses and technology companies have been selecting Richardson as home for corporate headquarters or regional offices. Richardson is in the 4th largest CMSA in the United States, with respect to area. The region’s vast size has filled with high tech companies, 42 Fortune 500 companies, 3 tier one research universities, and more than 100 business accelerators and innovation labs among other organizations that compose its innovation ecosystem. A longtime leader in all manner of technology-focused businesses, including semiconductors, telecommunications, information services, and emerging technologies, the city of Richardson (a first ring city of the Dallas metro) is referred to as the “Telecom Corridor® Area of Innovation.” With a high concentration of international companies’ U.S. headquarters or large regional offices (63 at last count), the Texas Legislature has proclaimed Richardson “The International Business Capital of North Texas.” History of the Telecom Corridor In 1951, Collins Radio relocated its electronics company from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to Richardson and constructed the first building of what would become a multi-building campus on a 400-acre site. Collins Radio helped usher in the Information Age with radio equipment used by everyone from ham radio operators to NASA. This attracted engineering talent to the area and eventually spawned several new technology-based enterprises. In the decades that followed, technology and telecommunications continued to form the cornerstone for economic growth and development of the community, creating one of the largest technology centers in the United States known as the Telecom Corridor® area.