Smartphones. Vehicles. Toasters. Fighter jets. Whereas vastly completely different on the skin, all 4 objects share one thing comparable on the within: semiconductors.
“There isn’t any tech trade with out semiconductors,” mentioned Stacy Rasgon, senior semiconductor analyst at Bernstein Analysis.
Semiconductors symbolize a $574 billion trade globally and are on tempo to cross the trillion-dollar mark by the tip of the last decade. The trade has been caught within the crosshairs between the U.S. and China, two of the world’s largest economies.
The U.S., which leads the world in world semiconductor market share, just lately issued sweeping restrictions on the sale of superior chips and chipmaking gear to China, in an try to limit Beijing’s entry to vital applied sciences. The Biden administration has mentioned the export controls are aimed partially at stopping using American-made chips in China’s army. China, in the meantime, has accused the U.S. of abusing export restrictions to impede the nation’s technological advances.
“We can not enable China to have our most subtle semiconductor chips to be used within the Chinese language army,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo mentioned in an interview with CNBC on Oct. 30, 2023. “That is the place we have drawn the lower line.”
Watch the video above to seek out out extra about how the semiconductor trade turned the centerpiece of a technological tug-of-war between the U.S. and China, and what the potential implications are for corporations caught in the midst of all of it.
Correction:Â A earlier model of this story misstated the worth of the semiconductor trade. In line with the Semiconductor Trade Affiliation, world semiconductor gross sales reached $574 billion in 2022.
