US-China tech war: calls for Biden to fund US semiconductors grow louder in Washington
- South Korea currently leads with a 25 per cent share of the world’s advanced chipmaking capacity, followed by Taiwan, Japan and China
- Cotton, a China hawk, views Beijing’s rivalry in cutting-edge technology as a threat to the US’s commercial and military advantages
US Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who is on Beijing’s sanctions list, has joined the public debate among industry groups and think tanks in advocating US government support for the country’s semiconductor manufacturing industry as part of a broader effort to win the tech war with China.
Cotton published a report last week, entitled Beat China, noting that American chip making ability has weakened over past decades, with the country’s share of global cutting-edge wafer fabrication capacity plunging to 11 per cent from more than a third in 1990. South Korea currently leads with a 25 per cent share of the world’s advanced chipmaking capacity, followed by Taiwan with 22 per cent, Japan with 16 per cent and mainland China at 14 per cent.
Cotton said the US must upgrade its own semiconductor manufacturing capacity to “build more independence and resiliency into the US semiconductor value chain” through federal grants and public-private partnerships.
That view is echoed by American industry groups and think tanks. In the past two weeks, Washington-based US tech advocacy group Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) and the Semiconductor industry Association (SIA), which represents US chip makers, have called on the Biden Administration to provide robust funding for semiconductor manufacturing and research in the US.
SIA president and CEO John Neuffer said in a statement issued last week that US President Joe Biden should seize “a historic opportunity to invest boldly in domestic semiconductor manufacturing incentives and research initiatives” for long-term US prosperity and security.