In a devastating blow to Intel, the company has just faced a disaster as its plan to bring online semiconductor manufacturing capacity has seemingly bit the dust. According to sources, the White House has “strongly discouraged” an Intel-proposed plan to add manufacturing capacity. What was the issue you might ask? Well, the factory is located in Chengdu, China.
As we all know that the world is currently facing a desperate and well-known ongoing shortage in the semiconductor industry, however, no matter the crisis, some political lines should not be crossed.
Biden Administration has strongly presented its stand and has time and again shown a strong negative sentiment towards any sort of semiconductor investment within China’s borders. The reasons for that would be many, and security concerns are certainly one of them.
But despite the opposition given by the US, China’s increasing investment in semiconductor technologies is a worrying matter for the US. The country famously included “semiconductor sufficiency” in its 14th five-year plan (2021-2026).
The South Asian giant has been busy heavily investing in its state-sponsored semiconductor electronics companies and increasing internal chip output to more than 1 billion a day, and also the company has been strongly pursuing intellectual property registrations by not including patents related to semiconductor manufacturing.
China also controls most of the rare metal production in the entire planet which includes 55% of global rare earth mining output is China’s, and 85% of all rare earth minerals have to go through the country in one way or another throughout their semiconductor manufacturing process.
“Intel and the Biden administration share a goal to address the ongoing industrywide shortage of microchips, and we have explored several approaches with the U.S. government,” Intel stated. According to sources, Intel stated that it has no current plans to increase production in China after meeting with government officials and that it will try to pursue “other solutions.”
