Wake County pursues $11 billion jobs pipeline

Triangle Business Journal | 02.04.2026

For Michael Haley, executive director of Wake County Economic Development, 2026 started with a bang: an announcement from Swiss biotech firm Genentech that it would double its investment in the region by pouring $2 billion into its manufacturing operations in Holly Springs.

Haley is confident that more economic wins are ahead this year as his team works to recruit companies to the Triangle.

“These companies are finding they’re making an initial announcement and they’re doubling down before they can even finish their construction,” Haley said. “We saw that with Fujifilm [Diosynth Biotechnologies], we saw that with Amgen and now we’re seeing that with Genentech.”

Wake County’s active pipeline includes 52 projects worth more than $11 billion in potential investment and 11,000 jobs, Haley said. Life sciences and advanced manufacturing dominate that list.

Twelve of the Wake County projects are targeting Raleigh. According to Kyle Touchstone, director of Raleigh Economic Development, several of those are advanced manufacturing — “which is a little unusual … just because of our lack of industrial inventory.”

The 12 Raleigh projects, most of them office, represent more than $860 million in potential investment and more than 2,000 jobs.

Touchstone said his team is seeing a “very strong renewed interest in downtown” for office projects, which he attributes in part to activity around the construction of the Omni Hotel and convention center expansion.

“When you see those things, it gets you excited,” Touchstone said.

Across Wake County, about 25 percent of prospective projects come from companies headquartered outside the U.S., with strong activity from Japan, Germany and Switzerland. Switzerland in particular has been a valuable partner, Haley said, pointing to recent wins such as Genentech, Novartis, Ypsomed and Audemars Piguet.

Similar trends are playing out statewide. As of the end of January, the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina reported 229 active projects in its pipeline representing 60,000 potential jobs and $36 billion in investment across North Carolina. Twenty-five of those projects emerged in January alone.

More than three-quarters of January’s deal flow involved manufacturing, led by energy (12 percent), life sciences (11 percent) and food and beverages (9 percent). Statewide, 44 percent of active projects involve foreign investment, led by China, Canada and Italy, according to EDPNC.