Silicon Valley

Proper noun

Silicon Valley (countable and uncountable, plural Silicon Valleys)

1. (informal) Originally, the region of the San Francisco Bay Area in which there were a high number of industries producing silicon chips; later extended to mean the entire concentration of high-tech businesses in this area.
   • The community of radio amateurs—trespassing fiddlers on the cutting edge of technological possibilities—prefigured the geek community that was to inhabit Silicon Valley 50 years later.2012, Fiorenza Belussi, Udo Hermann Staber, Managing Networks of Creativity, page 92
   • Since the launch early last year of Udacity and Coursera, two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to...2013 July 20, “The attack of the MOOCs”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845, archived from the original on 04 Apr 2021
2. (metonymically) The tech industry, especially the American tech industry specifically.
3. (countable) A tech industry cluster in another country, developed as a competitor to the original Silicon Valley.
   • The belief in the early 1980s among many European pundits that a series of European Silicon Valleys could be developed before the end of the decade flew in the face of all the United States evidence.1995 March 16, Ray P Oakey, High-Technology New Firms: Variable Barriers To Growth, SAGE Publications Limited