America Is the Only Country Where All Five Makers of the Most Advanced Chips Are Building Big Factories
No other economy has more than two, after an AI boom that began just months after the 2022 law.
The Lawfare Podcast · Lawfare Daily: Mike Schmidt Talks CHIPS and U.S. Industrial PolicyAll five companies that make the world's most advanced chips are building large new factories in the United States. No other economy has more than two.
The CHIPS Act, a federal law that offered incentives to build chip factories in the U.S., passed in August 2022, when mobile phones were still the biggest driver of demand for cutting-edge chips, with Apple the dominant buyer. That fall, ChatGPT had its viral moment, and artificial intelligence began driving a yearslong structural boom in chip demand.
The question was where that new production would be built. Mike Schmidt, the former director of the Commerce Department office that ran the CHIPS program, says companies would have benefited from the boom in any case, but the United States would not have captured nearly as much of it without the law's incentives.
His assessment is that the act made America a premier destination for semiconductor manufacturing, and affected the shape of global supply.
Questions people ask
Who are the five leading-edge chipmakers?
They are Taiwan's TSMC, South Korea's Samsung and SK Hynix, America's Intel and Micron. TSMC, Intel, and Samsung lead in processors, while Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron lead in advanced memory chips.
What does leading-edge mean in chips?
It means the most advanced chips, with the smallest and most densely packed transistors. They power AI systems, smartphones, and high-performance computers, and only a handful of companies can make them at scale.
Where in the U.S. are these factories going?
TSMC is expanding in Arizona, Samsung in Texas, and Intel, Micron, and SK Hynix have major U.S. projects as well. The projects include both factories already under construction and additional plants that companies have committed to build.