Business Weekly
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2021
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
They’re the technical bits of genius businesses cannot do without. On this edition of Business Weekly, we look at the world of semiconductors and why a shortage of them is holding up industries the world over. From consumer electronics to cars, the squeeze on semiconductors affects the supply of everything with a computer chip. Also, Ngozi Okonjo-Iwela becomes the first African and first female director general of the World Trade Organisation. We hear from the woman herself about the task ahead. Plus, should children be learning about bonds, shares and savings accounts as well as algebra and geometry? We speak to pupils around the world keen to learn about finance and money.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Weekly with me, Vashala Sri Pathma. |
| 0:09.5 | The pandemic has exerted pressure on a range of industries, with restrictions meaning lots are forced to close. |
| 0:16.2 | It's meant that consumer and institutional demand for goods and services have been somewhat distorted, |
| 0:22.4 | with some businesses getting caught out. Semiconductors are materials that conduct electricity |
| 0:28.4 | under specific conditions, putting them at the heart of the computer chips inside appliances, |
| 0:34.6 | ranging from washing machines to game consoles. That means semiconductors have become |
| 0:39.0 | important to daily life. There's currently a shortage of these essential bits of technical |
| 0:44.4 | wonder, meaning that big industries are facing huge disruption. My colleague Ed Butler has been |
| 0:50.8 | taking a look at what impact this is having on our daily lives and gets the |
| 0:55.3 | heart of the problem in Taiwan. Disruption is an overused term in technology. Normally it refers |
| 1:01.7 | to new innovations, challenging business as usual. But COVID-19 has seen one old-style disruption, |
| 1:10.0 | like no other, frankly. Semiconductors, computer chips to you and me, |
| 1:14.9 | there simply aren't enough of them around the world at the moment. |
| 1:18.7 | Not enough, at least, for the electronics and all kinds of other products that demand them. |
| 1:24.0 | It turns out they really are quite important to us all. |
| 1:27.4 | When we hear chips or semiconductors, |
| 1:29.3 | we think of your computer, your laptop, your smartphone, but it goes far beyond that. I would say |
| 1:35.6 | by today it's hard to imagine an industry or a part of your life that doesn't rely on semiconductors |
| 1:42.6 | at some point. So in your car are dozens to 100 of semiconductors, |
| 1:48.4 | our traffic management system, our energy system, our banking sector, hospitals, |
| 1:53.8 | they all rely on semiconductors for their most mundane and basic tasks. |
| 1:59.0 | That's Jan Peter Kleinhans. |
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