Georgia’s technology sector is booming. SK Group already is building an electric-vehicle battery plant near Commerce. Tech companies have flocked to metro Atlanta to open research hubs, including Microsoft, Google, Visa and Cisco.

But the massive semiconductor industry — its chips essential for everything from mobile phones to medical equipment to automobiles — represents new territory for Georgia.

Computer chip manufacturing is concentrated in Asia, with big plants in Taiwan, China and South Korea. The U.S. also has several big semiconductor plants, but most are outside the Southeast. Five chip plants are located in North Carolina, the closest the industry gets to Georgia.

AJC