Quantum leap

The tech tussle of the century is going on and New Zealand has been relegated to the sidelines.

- Peter Griff

Early this month, US President Joe Biden signed the Chips and Science Act into law, directing US$53 billion towards rebuilding American dominance in making computer chips.

Intel and AMD are probably the names that spring to mind when you think of computer chips; their semiconductors power the majority of Windows-based computers on the market.

But although they are American brands, the US now produces only 12% of the world’s computer chips. Most are actually manufactured in Taiwan and Korea, where massive fabrication plants churn out chips for the world’s largest electronics makers. China is ramping up its own production, with the aim of being 70% self-sufficient in chip production.

The rise of electric cars has massively boosted demand for chips because they have more complicated control systems than cars with combustion engines. Each Tesla electric car, for instance, contains more than 3000 computer chips.