Here’s what the $52 billion CHIPS Act means for regular people

As the pandemic showed us, globalization has painful weaknesses. The CHIPS act addresses those.

- ALAINA YEE

On Monday, President Biden signed into law the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 (fave. co/3PrNF4A), a $280 billion bill that paves the way for new chip foundries to be built on US soil. It's a significant investment in the domestic semiconductor industry, with $52 billion specifically marked for manufacturing and research.

For those of us who don't spend our time analyzing the geopolitical chess moves made by countries, this news may sound irrelevant to everyday life. But there are practical benefits to the U.S. reasserting its presence in chip manufacturing ones that even we normal citizens will see, either directly or indirectly.

RELIABLE SUPPLY OF CHIPS

Right now a large portion of chip manufacturing takes place overseas, much of it in East Asia. Before the pandemic, when the world was more comfortable with the interdependence of a globalized economy, this system worked smoothly. A single region with heavy focus on certain aspects of physical production provided better economy, and it didn't matter that the company designing a processor was headquartered an ocean away from where the final product would be produced.

But since Covid-19 hit, we've all seen how supply chain disruptions (fave.co/3PhwqT9) (including massive shipping issues) have affected availability of all kinds of electronics and items that contain electronics, like cars. It wasn't just the PC components that DIY builders and upgraders were starved for. More painfully, prices soared too, due to high demand and low supply.