America's many chip vulnerabilities

CAMBRIDGE - Although semiconductor chips are ubiquitous nowadays, their production is concentrated in just a few countries, and this has left the U.S. economy and military highly vulnerable at a time of rising geopolitical tensions. While the United States commands a leading position in designing and providing the software for the high-end chips used in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, production of the chips themselves occurs elsewhere. To head off the risk of catastrophic supply disruptions, the U.S. needs a coherent strategy that embraces all nodes of the semiconductor industry.