Rakesh Kumar is a professor at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Illinois and the author of Reluctant Technophiles: India’s Complicated Relationship with Technology.
In a stunning example of how geopolitical powers are restricting access to chips to their rivals, while maneuvering to stimulate chip production at home, TSMC and ASML now have the capability to remotely disable chipmaking tools if China invades Taiwan. With all the recent furious action around chips, questions about what the new status quo will look like arise. Will some countries outspend and box out others? Or will multiple power centers emerge, perhaps targeting separate niches?
