Europe and the United States no longer want to depend on one or two Asian countries for their semiconductor supply.
Nicolas Barré takes stock of a current economic issue.
It has become the obsession of the United States and Europe, to no longer depend on one or two Asian countries for their semiconductor supply.
In the past, it was oil that was considered the most critical resource for the prosperity of economies.
Today it is semiconductors.
They are everywhere.
It is THE raw material of the 21st century.
And the Covid crisis has further accentuated our dependence on electronic chips, quite simply because this crisis is accelerating the digitalization of economies.
But a bit like for drugs, whose active ingredients are mainly produced in Asia, Western countries - United States and Europe - are waking up and realizing today how dangerously they are dependent on Asian countries like Taiwan, Korea. or China for their semiconductors.
Suddenly, the United States want to regain their strategic autonomy in this area.
This is critical, indeed, and the Biden administration has launched an audit of the supply chains of several strategic sectors, the first of which is electronic components.
It is clear that in the context of growing tensions with China, the United States cannot afford to be at the mercy of an Asian chip supplier for its industry.
As in drugs, within roughly a generation, Western countries have let go of much of the electronics industry in Asia.
In 1990, the United States produced 37% of the microchips in the world.
Today, they weigh only 12% even though these components are infinitely more sophisticated and complex to design and manufacture.
But is it not too late to catch up?
US semiconductor giant Intel is betting it won't.
He announced this Wednesday 20 billion dollars of investments in new factories of electronic chips.
He also wants to invest in Europe because we too (and even more than the United States) are dependent on Asian suppliers.
It is important that for certain critical components at least, we too are able to achieve a certain degree of technological autonomy.
Chips are the fuel of advanced economies.
We cannot be entirely dependent on suppliers who, for economic or political reasons, could block us tomorrow.