Intel Emerges as Symbol of Big Tech’s Decline
Government backing for smaller rivals is smarter than wasteful handouts to a company that has lost its way.
Late to the game.
Photographer: PC Format Magazine/Future PublishingAs if to symbolize U.S. decline, a giant of American industry is being overtaken by foreign rivals. Intel Corp., the company that once marked U.S. dominance of the semiconductor industry, has announced that the introduction of its new flagship series of computer chips, 7nm CPUs, will be a year behind schedule. This is after its previous generation of chips, 10nm CPUs, took much longer than expected.
Intel, unlike many semiconductor companies, designs and fabricates its own chips. On the design front, it’s being overtaken by domestic rivals and U.K.-based ARM Ltd., which recently snatched Apple Inc.’s business away from Intel. On the fabrication side, Intel is losing ground to Taiwan’s TSMC, which specializes in manufacturing chips for other companies and which has had little trouble making its own new generations of chips on time. TSMC now has a higher market value of the two companies: