$52 Billion Chipmaking Plan Is Racing Toward Failure
A big semiconductor bill was once a bipartisan showpiece. Ill-considered policies are killing it.
Little chips, big problems.
Photographer: Doug Mills/Pool/Getty Images
By now it’s clear that the Chips and Science Act — which includes a $52 billion splurge for the semiconductor industry — is unlikely to work as intended. In fact, its looming failure is a microcosm of all that’s wrong with America’s current approach to building things.
Passed last year with bipartisan support, the law was meant to revive US chipmaking capacity. Although America is a world leader in cutting-edge chip design, its share of global semiconductor manufacturing has declined from 37% in 1990 to about 12%. Given the importance of such chips to the economy and especially to national security — the Defense Department needs about 1.9 billion of them a year — a more or less coherent case could be made for subsidies, prudently applied.