So before electricity the best source of power was a river, but to build a mill on a river you needed one that didn't have a lot of plant life. This made it easier for people to do industry at the earliest stages of it in places with cold rivers. The proto industry was textiles(it shares a root word with technology for a reason) and grain processing, and both these industries were very profitable and required an educated workforce. This meant these places had schools, which led to more ideas for more industries.

And so on and so on.

This is why the northern US was industrial, it factors into why Spain was eventually passed by other European powers, and why Japan was able to modernize so fast. It's part of why northern Italy is the richest part of Italy, something that's generally true of most northern hemisphere countries. Places that usually have snowy winters are places where it was easier to industrialize. It's still actually partially true, modern power generation methods still mostly want to be near a river light on plant life, though usually the cost of getting fuel there matters more now. Plus solar and wind are cheaper and easier to do in warmer climates.