How World Powers Are Vying for Chip Supremacy
The US has deployed export controls and tariffs to preserve an edge in semiconductor technology. Is it working?
Computer chips are the engine of the digital economy, and their growing capabilities are enabling technologies such as generative artificial intelligence that promise to transform multiple industries.
Small wonder, then, that the devices are now the focus of intense competition between the world’s economic superpowers. The US under former President Joe Biden rolled out an array of restrictions to curtail China’s access to the most advanced chips that his successor Donald Trump has largely upheld. Trump’s administration has even taken a stake in ailing American chipmaker Intel Corp. in the hope of molding a national champion that can compete with Asia’s giant manufacturers on an equal footing.