United States Commerce Secretary, Gina Raimondo, asserted during an Intel Foundry Direct Connect event that the allocated $39 billion provision by the CHIPS Act 2022 for semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure will not suffice to re-establish US technological leadership.
Raimondo elaborated that the US needs to enact a second CHIPS Act which will provide additional subsidies to be a global leader in the semiconductor industry. It’s worth noting that out of the initial $52 billion fund, set by the first CHIPS Act, only $39 billion will be allocated to the US semiconductor manufacturing facilities. The remaining $75 billion is planned to be distributed as targeted loans. Among the significant chip manufacturers, only GlobalFoundries has received $1.5 billion for the advanced development of its US-based manufacturing facilities. Intel Corporation, recently referred to as the ‘American Champion’ by Raimondo, has yet to receive any subsidies. However, Intel’s CEO, Patrick Gelsinger, guaranteed that an announcement regarding this matter will be delivered soon. Raimondo also validated the forthcoming announcement during her presentation.
“I suspect that a ‘CHIPS Act 2’ or some other method to secure extra investment will be needed if we are to become a world leader,” Raimondo detailed, underlining that ascertaining the production of all kinds of chip range within the US was not practical. Hence, no objectives were set for it. Rather, the focus is to diversify supply chains in such a way that ensures more chips are produced within the US, especially advanced ones that hold immense significance for the future development of artificial intelligence systems.
Communications with Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, and other industry representatives led Raimondo to comprehend the industry’s overwhelming requirement for chips. As a brief note, Altman is initiating the gathering of several trillion dollars in the US. This fund is required for significantly increasing the production volume of computation accelerators and enticing investors to fund the development of unique accelerators. Similar plans are under contemplation by the founder of the Japanese corporation SoftBank, the owner of British processor architectures developer Arm.
