California-based Intel, whose processors run
more than 80 percent of personal computers shipped worldwide
every year, originally chose to establish operations in Costa
Rica after studying sites in Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil,
Argentina, Chile and Mexico, according to a 2000 case study by
Harvard University’s Center for International Development. The
company’s $600 million investment at the time represented about
4.2 percent of GDP, prompting the company’s then-Vice President
Bob Perlman to say Intel’s arrival was like “putting a whale in
a swimming pool,” according to the study.