Techno-nationalism via semiconductors: Can chip manufacturing return to America?
Alex Capri 15 June 2021
China’s increasingly competitive relationship with the US and its allies is accelerating strategic decoupling, reshoring, and ringfencing throughout the landscape for semiconductors, the ‘brains’ essential for almost every industry of the future. Today, microchip manufacturing is disproportionately concentrated in Asia, especially in Taiwan. Perhaps not for long, according to a new report by Research Fellow Alex Capri. Read the paper, a follow up to last year’s primer on semiconductors, to learn the actions taken by the United States to revitalize its semiconductor industry, once the global leader.
The Biden administration has just completed its 100-day review of supply chain vulnerabilities. In Quick Takes – our brief analysis of policy developments – Research Fellow Stephen Olson shares his initial observations of the main outcomes outlined in the 250-page report. Read the article to learn more takeaways, such as the conclusion that the review’s objectives are exceedingly ambitious.
As companies begin to feel the sting of an ongoing semiconductor shortage, leaders in the United States, the European Union and Asian nations are scrambling to ease the snags in the supply chains for chips — and re-shore manufacturing of these vital components.
This National Press Foundation briefing, sponsored by the Hinrich Foundation, will explain how the chip market got so concentrated, how major economies, including the United States and China, came to outsource this critical component to Taiwan, and why new semiconductor plants are so expensive to build. Speakers include:
Alex Capri, Research Fellow, Hinrich Foundation and Visiting Senior Fellow, National University of Singapore Business School
Debby Wu, Asia Tech Reporter, Bloomberg News, Taipei City, Taiwan
Mung Chiang, Dean of College of Engineering, Purdue University
What We are Reading is a collection of articles, essays, and reports that detail the latest developments in trade and investment, as well as technology and geopolitics. We are excited to share the insights, curated by experts such as former USTR Director Holly Smith, that we hope will provoke further debate about the future of sustainable and mutually beneficial global trade.
