Asia-Pacific tech war is really a subsidies battle

According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, between the CHIPS Act's introduction in 2020 to June 2023, 67 new projects and expansions of existing US facilities were announced in research and development, intellectual property, chip design, semiconductor fabrication and manufacturing equipment, supplies and materials. This new activity contrasts with the steady decline in the US share of global semiconductor manufacturing from 19 per cent in 2000 to only 12 per cent in 2020. Assessing how many of these projects have been attracted to the US by CHIPS Act subsidies is difficult. Some of these investments might have been made regardless, and…