American firms are still leaders in designing microchips. But the Netherlands produces the most critical machinery for making them, while Taiwan, South Korea and, increasingly, China churn them out
as the world’s dominant power in the semiconductor industry is etched in the name of its most famous tech hub, Silicon Valley. Over the decades, though, the art of crafting microchips out of silicon wafers has become a truly global endeavour. American firms are still leaders in designing the devices. But the Netherlands produces the most critical machinery for making them, while Taiwan, South Korea and, increasingly, China churn them out.
The term “moonshot” is overused in describing ambitious high-tech initiatives. In this case it is entirely apt, at least in a financial sense. In inflation-adjusted terms, the research-and-development funding contained in the act slightly exceeds the investments of Project Apollo, the 1960s spaceflight programme that ultimately landed the first people on the moon, according to Sarah Bauerle Danzman of Indiana University Bloomington.Act will be similarly far-reaching.
Supporters of the act are both more optimistic and, they believe, realistic. They argue that the vast pool of new funding for scientific research, if well managed, could yield untold innovations. Yet they also concede that America will never recover its dominance in semiconductor manufacturing. Rather, the goal is to bring more assembly back to the country as a hedge against excessive reliance on supplies from abroad.
Semiconductors are integral to anything that contains electronics—from fridges to smartphones and cars to modern weapons systems—which means dispersed global production networks are seen as a risk. America is far from alone in this thinking. In February the European Commission, the executive arm of the, proposed a new law that aims to generate public and private investment worth nearly $50bn in semiconductor research and production.
In the end, it was as much the sight of America’s allies investing in semiconductors as it was the fear of China that helped concentrate minds in Congress. “France, Germany, Singapore, Japan: all of these other countries are providing incentives for chip companies to build there,” Gina Raimondo, America’s commerce secretary, said ontelevision on July 24th. “We cannot afford to be in this vulnerable position. We need to be able to protect ourselves.
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