In September, chip giant Intel gathered officials at land near Columbus, Ohio, where it pledged to invest at least $20 billion in two new factories to make semiconductors.
A month later, Micron Technology celebrated a new manufacturing site near Syracuse, NY, where the chip company planned to spend $20 billion by the end of the decade and possibly five times as much.
And in December, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company held a party in Phoenix, where it plans to triple its investment to $40 billion and build a second new factory to create advanced chips.
The pledges are part of a huge ramp-up in U.S. chipmaking plans over the past 18 months, the scale of which has been compared to Cold War-era investments in the space race. . The boom has implications for global technology leadership and geopolitics, with the United States aiming to prevent China from becoming an advanced power in chips, the silicon wafers that have led to the creation of innovative computing devices like smartphones and virtual reality glasses.
Today, chips are an essential part of modern life, even beyond the creations of the tech industry, from military equipment and cars to kitchen appliances and toys.
Across the country, more than 35 companies have pledged nearly $200 billion for chip-related manufacturing projects since the spring of 2020, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade group. The money is expected to be spent in 16 states, including Texas, Arizona and New York, for 23 new chip factories, the expansion of nine factories and investment by companies supplying equipment and materials to the industry. .
The push is one facet of a Biden administration industrial policy initiative, which provides at least $76 billion in subsidies, tax credits and other subsidies to encourage domestic chip production. Along with providing massive funding for infrastructure and clean energy, these efforts are arguably the biggest U.S. investment in manufacturing since World War II, when the federal government unblocked spending on new ships, pipelines and factories to manufacture aluminum and rubber.
“I’ve never seen a tsunami like this,” said Daniel Armbrust, the former chief executive of Sematech, a now-defunct chip consortium formed in 1987 with the Department of Defense and funded by the corporations. members.