In Norcross, a 3-year-old company runs three production lines 24 hours a day, cranking out the future of Atlanta.

The company, known as Suniva, employs 200 people making solar cells. It was born largely in the mind of a Georgia Tech scientist who is seeking the holy grail of solar power: high-efficiency cells made at low cost. And it is an example of the sort of business that will be essential to the success of American cities in the future: high-tech manufacturing that feeds a growing market.

Suniva followed a path – from brain to market – blazed by such schools as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose researchers create hundreds of companies a year, and Stanford University, whose imprint on Silicon Valley is clear. Can Georgia Tech and Emory University do what MIT and Stanford have done?

The short answer is, yes, Atlanta can play in the same league as Boston and San Jose.

But it doesn’t. At least not yet.

“You look at the actual social structure of this city and see that we have a huge amount of fragmentation: Companies and industries are just not connected to each other,” says Dan Breznitz, a Georgia Tech professor who studies innovation and economic development.

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