The U.S. Senate passed [Senate Passes $280 Billion Industrial Policy Bill to Counter China – NYT] by a bipartisan vote (64 to 33) a $280 billion bill, the so-called Chips (Creating helpful incentives to produce semiconductors) & Science Act. [House Passes Chips Act to Boost U.S. Semiconductor Production – WSJ]
The House of Representatives plans to approve it this week and President Joe Biden to ratify it soon after. The legislation aims to address the severe shortage of chips through large subsidies to the semiconductor industry: 52 billion to companies that produce them in the United States and 200 billion for scientific research on artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing.
The spending package addresses the concern by lawmakers of both parties that the U.S. needs to attract more manufacturing of chips and technology as a response to Beijing’s technological and economic rise.
The bill “helps fulfill the Biden administration’s goal of revitalizing our domestic manufacturing economy,” said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who has lobbied lawmakers to support the package.
The US industry is a leader in the high-end of the chip value chain mainly related to design and research and development, but is dependent on Asian ones for the middle end of the chain. South Korea and Taiwan dominate the production of basic components, China the assembly of chips. With an aggressive policy of reshoring to bring high-tech manufacturing back home, the U.S. would like to make itself autonomous from China in the global semiconductor value chain.
Ensuring its domestic production is essential for a wide range of consumer goods, as well as military means. It is no coincidence that Biden has defined the approval of the proposal as fundamental to "national security". The Chinese embassy in Washington had already commented that the bill appears "rooted in the mentality of the Cold War and the zero-sum game." Another episode of the tech side in the duel for world leadership.
