Apple’s Zippered Lips on Chips


U.S. and European officials talk endlessly about making more of the world’s advanced computer chips anywhere outside of Taiwan where they think they are vulnerable to Chinese invasion or influence. they are on a mission Making more chips in the USA and Europe and I want spend taxpayer dollars by doing so.

Apple doesn’t seem too worried. In the coming years, Apple planned that devices coming off the assembly lines will continue to rely heavily on chips made in Taiwan.

Apple has a history of bending global technology production to its will, and the company has lobbied for more computer chips to be produced in America. But Apple and other major chip buyers don’t seem to have made this a priority and are not seriously using their influence on suppliers to accelerate the construction of chip factories in the US, Japan or Europe.

“The industry is not promoting this as something that needs immediate action,” said Brett Simpson, a computer chip expert and partner at investment firm Arete Research.

The apparent disconnect between Western governments and the biggest chip buyers like Apple raises a question for companies and policymakers alike: Who is right about the urgency of the economic and geopolitical risks of focusing on chip manufacturing in Taiwan – people who need votes or companies voting with their wallets? ?

Government officials may be exaggerating the risks of concentrating on chip manufacturing in Taiwan, or chip buyers like Apple may be underestimating them. Or maybe these companies find it too daunting to move away from the expertise of Taiwan’s chip factories faster. Whatever the reason, it’s as if the elected leaders and companies that need the chips most are operating with a different understanding of what is possible and necessary for the future of this important industry.

Let me summarize why big businesses and big governments want to keep the flow of computer chips, but have not taken a locked step in how and how quickly they will achieve it.

Many important products, including smartphones, medical devices, and warplanes, need computer chips to function as their brains or memories. Some of us have become acutely aware of these teeny ingredients because the production of computer chips did not meet the demand of people who wanted to buy cars, computers and other goods during the pandemic.

Shortage of certain products and rising tensions between the US and China, became the center of attention To Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company or TSMC. It almost entirely manufactures many of the world’s newest computer chips, including Apple products. in factories in Taiwan.

TSMC is expanding to other locations, including: arizona, but it takes years for new factories to become operational. It is in everyone’s interest to keep factories producing computer chips without interruption, because the global economy would otherwise take a leap. The Biden administration and many technologists say it is strategically important to preserve America’s know-how in chipmaking and counter China’s ambitions in chipmaking and other key technology areas.

Changing the world’s reliance on chips made in Taiwan won’t be easy, and industry officials told me Apple is working behind the scenes to support legislation to manufacture more chips in America.

Some major chip buyers have also said they are helping TSMC pay for chip factories outside of Taiwan and will buy chips manufactured there. The question is, can all this go faster if influential clients put more power into it?

Simpson told me that if Apple and other big customers like Qualcomm and Nvidia want to expand production faster than Taiwan, they can put pressure on TSMC to get new factories up and running instead of in stages, as TSMC does. They can also commit to purchasing more chips from other manufacturers, such as Samsung and Intel, which have factories outside Taiwan. Instead, Apple and others mostly double down on contracts with TSMC.

When Washington and Silicon Valley don’t seem to share the same sense of urgency, it’s hard for all of us to know if it’s worth the collective effort to create a new world order in computer chips.



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