Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang, who runs the semiconductor industry’s most valuable company, said the US is as much as 20 years away from breaking its dependence on overseas chipmaking.
I mean, that’s a pretty idea but really it’s just accepting monopolies outside of your personal means to affect. What the US is doing here is clearly profit and security focused, but Taiwan supremacy from what I can tell isn’t the byproduct of its location or assets, but instead decades of investment and support in producing chips which inexorably lead to it being the best. Really if anyone else is willing to invest that to become comparable it’s a good thing. It prevents a single entity dictating terms for everyone. In an ideal world we would just collectively share resources and things would cost a fair price for what it takes to produce them, sadly in a capital focused society its really whatever you make of it.
I think you’d be surprised how much of even modern capacities can be traced back to simple things like the availability of water and shipping access. Sure, Taiwan isn’t a world leader in chips because of their weather today. But their climate is key to their population size via how many people they can feed, which is quite weather dependent. Having robust food supply is what allows a society to specialize its labor into technology, industry, and modernization. And why is Taiwan in an entrepreneurial mode to make such investments at all? Because of their geography - as an island they were not so easily taken by the CCP and the PRC have been able to hold out there for many decades.
Basically, yes, it’s just several decades of investment that has led to their dominance. But they were only in a position to do all of that because of their starting conditions. They played their conditions masterfully. But for example the DRC couldn’t go do the same thing tomorrow.
I mean, that’s a pretty idea but really it’s just accepting monopolies outside of your personal means to affect. What the US is doing here is clearly profit and security focused, but Taiwan supremacy from what I can tell isn’t the byproduct of its location or assets, but instead decades of investment and support in producing chips which inexorably lead to it being the best. Really if anyone else is willing to invest that to become comparable it’s a good thing. It prevents a single entity dictating terms for everyone. In an ideal world we would just collectively share resources and things would cost a fair price for what it takes to produce them, sadly in a capital focused society its really whatever you make of it.
I think you’d be surprised how much of even modern capacities can be traced back to simple things like the availability of water and shipping access. Sure, Taiwan isn’t a world leader in chips because of their weather today. But their climate is key to their population size via how many people they can feed, which is quite weather dependent. Having robust food supply is what allows a society to specialize its labor into technology, industry, and modernization. And why is Taiwan in an entrepreneurial mode to make such investments at all? Because of their geography - as an island they were not so easily taken by the CCP and the PRC have been able to hold out there for many decades.
Basically, yes, it’s just several decades of investment that has led to their dominance. But they were only in a position to do all of that because of their starting conditions. They played their conditions masterfully. But for example the DRC couldn’t go do the same thing tomorrow.