{"id":4110,"date":"2026-08-16T15:07:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T18:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glgov.org\/?p=4110"},"modified":"2026-08-16T15:07:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T18:07:29","slug":"technological-sovereignty-with-american-characteristics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glgov.org\/?p=4110","title":{"rendered":"Technological sovereignty with American characteristics"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"4110\" class=\"elementor elementor-4110\" data-elementor-settings=\"[]\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-section-wrap\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-782dc844 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"782dc844\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-3ee9ad1b\" data-id=\"3ee9ad1b\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-5bba9509 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"5bba9509\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-text-editor elementor-clearfix\"><div id=\"o-topper\" class=\"o-topper__content\">\r\n<div class=\"o-topper__standfirst\">The US has decided it can no longer afford to outsource its chipmaking future<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"o-topper__columnist\">\r\n<ul class=\"o-topper__columnist-list\">\r\n \t<li><a class=\"o-topper__columnist-name n-content-tag--with-follow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/stream\/550e0503-916f-472a-acef-c03bb24b87d3\" data-trackable=\"columnist\">Winston Ma<\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"o-topper__right-rail-content\">\r\n<div data-component=\"topper__right-rail-placeholder\">The writer is an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law and former head of North America for CIC, China\u2019s sovereign wealth fund\r\nIn February, President Donald Trump directed the Treasury and commerce secretaries to develop a plan for a US sovereign wealth fund.\r\nAlthough such a fund has yet to be established, the government\u2019s acquisition in August of a 10 per cent equity stake in US chipmaker Intel demonstrates that active state participation in industrial sectors of strategic importance to national security is part of an increasingly clear and focused strategy.\r\nThe commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said at the end of September that the administration\u2019s aim is to \u201cget chip manufacturing significantly onshored\u201d. And on Monday, the government announced it would take a 10 per cent stake in Canadian mining company Trilogy Metals in a bid, as the secretary of the interior Doug Burgum put it, to secure the supply of critical minerals.\r\nThe Trump administration\u2019s equity-for-grants deal with Intel did three things, each of which sheds light on America\u2019s evolving industrial strategy.\r\nFirst, it sent a market signal that the US is committed to Intel\u2019s long-term prospects. The company is the country\u2019s best chance to compete with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Korea\u2019s Samsung in chip\u00a0fabrication.\r\nSecond, the stake was a \u201cpoison pill\u201d to dissuade the company from fully exiting the manufacturing sector. TSMC is the dominant player in chip\u00a0manufacturing, especially advanced artificial intelligence chips, so Wall Street may advise Intel to focus on chip design instead. But Intel pulling out of manufacturing would be detrimental to the government\u2019s efforts to shore up domestic chip making for reasons of supply-chain stability.\r\nThird, the Intel deal was clearly intended to \u201ccrowd in\u201d further public-private partnership. Within days of the US government taking its stake, Japan\u2019s SoftBank announced its own $2bn investment in Intel, followed by Nvidia\u2019s $5bn design and manufacturing partnership with the company.\r\nHowever, even the $8.9bn of US funding, plus SoftBank\u2019s $2bn, will not fully finance Intel to build up its AI chip manufacturing capacity.\u00a0It may need to invest $10bn in each of the next five years if it is to succeed at making leading-edge chips.\r\nIntel\u2019s plan to open a new manufacturing facility in Ohio, for example, has been repeatedly delayed, not only because of the company\u2019s financial troubles, but also its lack of AI chip manufacturing orders from the biggest customers.\r\nUS government funding alone wouldn\u2019t address all of Intel\u2019s problems, which is why Nvidia\u2019s decision last month to invest $5bn in its struggling rival as part of a deal to develop chips for PCs and data centres is so significant. This partnership not only provides Intel with a critical revenue pipeline but also creates a demonstration effect: if the world\u2019s dominant AI chip designer entrusts Intel with responsibility for manufacturing, it could catalyse further private market capital to invest in a company seen as vital to US technological sovereignty.\r\nWill the US approach succeed? It\u2019s worth comparing these recent ad hoc efforts to boost chip manufacturing in America with China\u2019s National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, which demonstrates Beijing\u2019s ambition to build a competitive domestic foundry ecosystem. After significant investment by NICIIF in Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, the company now makes advanced AI chips for Huawei, and is striving to catch up with TSMC as well.\r\nBoth the US and China have decided that they can\u2019t afford to outsource their chipmaking future. Technological sovereignty is their common destination, and they are resorting to the same kind of strategy, albeit with their own distinctive characteristics, to get there.<\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US has decided it can no longer afford to outsource its chipmaking future Winston Ma The writer is an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law and former head of North America for CIC, China\u2019s sovereign wealth fund In February, President Donald Trump directed the Treasury and commerce secretaries to develop a plan for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4111,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opeds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glgov.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glgov.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glgov.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glgov.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glgov.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4110"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/glgov.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4115,"href":"https:\/\/glgov.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4110\/revisions\/4115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glgov.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glgov.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glgov.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glgov.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}