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What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - How War in Taiwan Could Short-Circuit U.S. Tech

Slate Daily Feed

Slate

Business, News, Society & Culture

3.91.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2023

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Roughly 95 percent of advanced semiconductor chip manufacturing happens in Taiwan, leaving the U.S. vulnerable to supply chain shocks and national security threats. Is the Biden administration’s $280 billion bill, signed in August last year, enough to boost domestic chip manufacturing?


Guest: Don Clark, freelance reporter specializing on chips and enterprise tech.


Host: Emily Peck


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Transcript

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0:00.0

When Fiona started Fee's fancy flowers, she used a fax machine to get in touch with her suppliers,

0:06.3

her investors and her customers too.

0:09.7

But as her business went from 100 customers to 10,000,

0:13.8

she realized it was time to finally embrace modern technology.

0:19.3

fax machines, they kind of like your business current account,

0:22.8

just because they were good once doesn't mean you have to stick with them forever.

0:26.7

Maybe it's time to switch with the current account switch service.

0:34.3

When Congress passed the multi-billion dollar Chips and Science Act last summer with rare bipartisan

0:39.6

support, the bill grabbed headlines. People say it's the biggest jump into industrial policy since like

0:46.2

the 1950s. That's Don Clark. He's been covering the tech industry and writing about Chips,

0:54.4

the Silicon kind, not the potato kind, for decades.

0:57.8

It won't at all solve all the problems that are out there about US reliance on foreign chips,

1:04.0

but it's a big step.

1:06.3

Tiny semiconductor chips are essentially the brains powering our modern lives.

1:11.2

We use them all day long in our coffee pots, our cars, and of course our cell phones.

1:17.0

But these tiny chips also hold the key to immense economic and government power.

1:22.0

Businesses like Apple rely on them to keep their edge in the market,

1:25.6

and the US government needs them too. Those little silicone wafers help create advanced

1:30.6

weaponry and are crucial to national security. Even in a super partisan era,

1:36.1

chips are viewed as too important to become political fodder.

1:39.9

Congress was on the defensive when the bill passed, worried about the country's reliance on foreign

1:44.7

chip manufacturers, particularly in Taiwan, which makes nearly all of the most advanced chips out there.

...

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