Thursday, January 19th 2023
Chips are the New Oil with Geopolitics: Intel CEO
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, in an interview with CNN at WEF Davos, stated that semiconductor chip supply chains will have a greater influence on geopolitics than oil supply-chains over the next 50 years. Modern civilization is increasingly digitized, and most modern conveniences are "chipped" and connected in some form, which would put the chip-producing nations, or entities producing/supplying the chips at a distinct geopolitical advantage, similar to the oil-producing ones today. The location of "oil reserves [has] defined geopolitics for the last five decades," Gelsinger said; "where the technology supply chains are, and where semiconductors are built, is more important for the next 5 decades," he added.
We caught a taste of exactly what he meant when global semiconductor supply chains buckled around 2020-onward, hitting a multitude of other industries, including automobiles, construction, remote-work, consumer electronics, and much more. Unlike oil, which is a geographically constrained being a natural resource, chips can be manufactured almost anywhere, dictated only by geopolitical, trade, and IP barriers. Gelsinger calls for a much wider geographic spread of chip-production, so the supply-chains get resilient to disruptions due to unforeseen events. "We need this geographically balanced, resilient supply chain," he said. Gelsinger is at the forefront of advocating semiconductor manufacturing on U.S. soil to not only meet local demand, but also contribute to global supply-chain resilience. The CHIPS Act passed by U.S. Congress in 2022 will oversee more than $200 billion in public investments on semiconductor manufacturing and tech-research in the U.S.
Source:
CNN International
We caught a taste of exactly what he meant when global semiconductor supply chains buckled around 2020-onward, hitting a multitude of other industries, including automobiles, construction, remote-work, consumer electronics, and much more. Unlike oil, which is a geographically constrained being a natural resource, chips can be manufactured almost anywhere, dictated only by geopolitical, trade, and IP barriers. Gelsinger calls for a much wider geographic spread of chip-production, so the supply-chains get resilient to disruptions due to unforeseen events. "We need this geographically balanced, resilient supply chain," he said. Gelsinger is at the forefront of advocating semiconductor manufacturing on U.S. soil to not only meet local demand, but also contribute to global supply-chain resilience. The CHIPS Act passed by U.S. Congress in 2022 will oversee more than $200 billion in public investments on semiconductor manufacturing and tech-research in the U.S.
21 Comments on Chips are the New Oil with Geopolitics: Intel CEO
To be serious; most nations are moving to develop their own chip manufacturing fabs. It makes sense long term, not even considering other factors. I think old Pat is doing the old intel shadow PR. Most things he says are loaded toward his company's interest and share value.
Anyway, while I'm here, formal advanced warning: points and reply bans wil be given to those who derail the thread with off-topic political posturing. This news post can easily be discusssed without resorting to aggressive nationalism and insults.
You have been warned.
This is why you keep it in-house while also providing jobs to your own populace, more expensive? Sure, but I don't see any owners of these companies living on the breadline.
Electronics supply chain:
(actually I've seen a similar graph for semiconductors but can't seem to find it now; far more complex, and each point represented one country) Combined with the eternal trend of cost cutting, this development will take us we-know-where: the number of countries whose industries are indispensable for chip industry can only go up over time, never down. Here's a nice example, Austria:
www.semianalysis.com/p/austrias-silent-monopolies-on-advanced
of which 0.2 billion/yr will go to Intel ceo
Yep only issue is finding materials to make tech with.
Dark Reign - we knew this in '97
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Reign:_The_Future_of_War
Semiconductors have been inseparable from the GDP growth and success of the world's most advanced economies for DECADES now, and probably a little more important than domestically secure food and energy production. It has been the case, since, oh, god, you can go back as far as the atomic bomb, but it really starts to roll over and change in the 60s 70s, with mainframe computers. The legendary IBM 360 put to shame any computers the Soviets were trying to build and produce at the time. Combine that with the advancements in mounted ICs and PCB tech used in the space programs, suddenly you have an insane recipe for success. "Chips that power nuclear bombs power my SEGA." - Crooklyn Dodgers
This tech-edge continues to be the pivotal competitive advantage between the West, its allies, and the rest of the world. Soviet MIG fighters were still using ferrite core memory in the late 80s. The Voyager probes had more advanced tech in them with fully integrated circuits. Russia and China have been playing a serious catchup game and they're still losing. Heck, because China knows how to make friends, they leap-frogged the Russians! Look up the fab list wiki. Russia's fabs are on average over 100nm, the smallest process available being 55nm. China's a little better but it depends on what they're producing; I think they have sub-20nm DRAM facilities, but that's not the same as producing complex microprocessors. They do however have quite the monopoly on power-related transistor products (which can easily be produced using old fab tech) and LED manufacturing... But, that's not really saying much.
Also, look at the money. The operating revenue of the biggest tech company in Russia is 6 billion or so (Yandex). The operating revenue of Apple is 120 billion, Google was 80, JP Morgan (for comparison) is 155. The biggest tech and software companies in China reach those operating revenues, but they're also operating out of a far larger country with far larger markets. We're talking Alibaba Holdings and Huawei. Their advantage is how they're on the better end of the supply chain (the start of it). I would say this is under threat as demand drops while the world licks overwhelming salty fiscal debt out of its wounds and treats everything with higher interest rates. Even in this economic climate, the West still wins and will continue to win because of the monopoly and eye-blistering advantage they have in processor architectures, transistor tech, tooling, as well as the supply of skilled workers.
I still believe what Gelsinger is saying is true, especially with maturing AI and deep machine learning. IBM cracked 2nm test DRAM last year, I believe. TSMC wouldn't exist if it weren't for Western tooling made out of the US and Europe.
Bringing back some of the production here to America, well, it's not as if it's NOT already happening. But, boosting it would mean a lot of jobs across the board - low, moderate, and high-skill labour of all kinds. Heck, you might be able to pay people enough to have families again lol