[ExI] Chip War

[John Clark]

On Sat, Oct 18, 2025 at 2:19 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:


> *> So if China does invade, it is in theory possible to evacuate the
> resource: the workers.*
>

*But would He Who Must Not Be Named let them enter the USA?  You Know Who
doesn't like immigrants, not even highly skilled ones. An immigration raid
crippled a high-tech battery plant in Georgia that Hyundai was trying to
build. *


*Administration in damage-control mode after Hyundai immigration raid*
<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-damage-control-hyundai-immigration-raid-south-korea-rcna231589>

*John K Clark*







>
> On Sat, Oct 18, 2025 at 11:51 AM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, Oct 18, 2025 at 9:06 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >
> >> > What, other than ASML's factories (that could be placed anywhere
> >> willing and able to pay, other than Russia or China), is needed to
> >> make chips that Taiwan has in more abundance than other places, in
> >> particular than the US?
> >
> >
> > Today Taiwan is the only country in the world that has a large
> population of skilled workers with years of experience making these sort of
> hyper advanced chips. The chip factory that TSMC recently opened in the US
> was built largely with Taiwanese construction workers and is also mostly
> operated by Taiwanese. Eventually AI will replace humans entirely in this,
> but by then we will be living in an entirely different world.
> >
> > John K Clark
> >
> >
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sat, Oct 18, 2025 at 7:01 AM John Clark via extropy-chat
> >> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > I highly recommend the 2022 book "Chip War: The Fight for the World's
> Most Critical Technology" by Chris Miller. It clearly explains why the
> small island of Taiwan, only 100 miles off the coast of mainland China, is
> vital to the world's economy, it's because TSMC's chip fabrication plants
> are there and they use hyper advanced hyper precise machine tools
> manufactured by the Dutch company ASML, and Taiwan is the only place in the
> world capable of mass producing chips at the cutting edge of technology
> such as those that fuel the current AI revolution, and that Apple uses in
> their phones. Thanks to Nvidia (the most valuable company in the world) the
> US still designs the world's most advanced chips, but it no longer
> manufactures them, by contrast no company in Taiwan designs chips, they
> just manufacture them. INTEL once prided itself on its mastery of the chip
> manufacturing process but in recent years it has fallen far behind and is
> currently incapable of making the advanced chips that TSMC can, and Micron,
> the only other company that makes chips on US soil, only makes commodity
> memory chips that were never on the cutting edge of technology.
> >> >
> >> > Miller points out that it's dangerous to tie the national security of
> the US to the fate of an island that mainland China insists they own. Just
> one of TSMC's factories, FAB #18, cost well over $25 billion and in 2022
> was the most expensive factory that human beings have ever made, and just
> one drone armed with a few hundred pounds of conventional explosives could
> disrupt all the very delicate equipment in it and send the entire world
> into a deep recession. China spends far more money importing foreign made
> chips than it does importing oil and is way behind Taiwan, and even the US,
> in its domestic chip manufacturing capabilities. And Russia is way behind
> China. Since ASML is not allowed to sell any of their most advanced chip
> making equipment to China, Miller estimates it would be a decade and cost
> several trillion dollars to reach the level Taiwan is currently at, but
> TSMC is not standing still and is spending furiously on R&D, so after a
> decade China still wouldn't be on the cutting edge. China knows all this of
> course, that's why in recent days it's been regarding Taiwan with envious
> eyes and is slowly and surely drawing their plans against it.
> >> >
> >> > John K Clark
> >> >
> >> >
>
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