The CHIPS and Science Act has been signed by US President Joe Biden. Through the act, the US government is freeing up as much as $52 billion to boost chip production and research on US soil.
Like the European Union (EU), the US wants to reduce its dependence on foreign chip manufacturers. This is a response to the global chip shortage in recent years, which caused problems in several sectors. Think of the automotive sector, but also several other industries such as agriculture and horticulture. Home appliances, game consoles and computer are also, or have been, more difficult to supply.
Grants and tax breaks
The CHIPS and Science Act makes grants and tax breaks available to companies that want to produce chips on US soil or conduct research on them. It is not yet known what rules parties must comply with to claim them. These rules have yet to be drawn up.
Several top officials from chip and tech companies were present at the signing of the legislation. These included AMD, HP, Intel, Lockheed Martin and Micron.
Micron's new chip factory
The latter announced just last week that he would invest $40 billion, or about 39 billion euros, in a new chip factory in the US. Micron will invest the amount between now and 2030.
The factory is specifically focused on the production of memory chips. The new chip factory should give a big boost to memory chip production in the US. Whereas currently about 2% of global memory chip production takes place in the US, Micron's new chip factory should increase this percentage to 10%.
Accelerating innovation and faster supercomputer
With the help of the CHIPS and Science Act, the US government aims, among other things, to allow chip startups to innovate faster at lower costs. The US also expects that the subsidies and tax breaks will lead to many new jobs and strengthen US batch supply chains.
In addition, part of the CHIPS and Science ACT is the construction of a new supercomputer. This is to be the world's first 'zettascale' supercomputer. The supercomputer should be about a thousand times faster than the fastest supercomputer currently available.
European Chips Act
Like the US government, the European Commission is committed to boosting chip production domestically. The commission presented the European Chips Act in February. In total, the European Commission wants to release an amount of over 43 billion euros to strengthen European chip production. This budget should come from both public and private investments. A quarter should come from public funds, while the private sector should contribute the remaining three quarters.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Photo: axonite via Pixabay
