The US House of Representatives officially passed a bill designed to help and boost production for US chipmakers. Officially known as the CHIPs Act, the bill will effectively allocate approximately US$53 billion (~RM235.7 billion) to companies like Intel and GlobalFoundries, over the course of five years.
As per Cnet’s report, the bill is designed to help US tech companies in cutting down the exorbitant expense that is usually associated with chip manufacturing and to ensure a steady supply of “electronic brains”, critical to modern cars, computers, weapons systems, and toys. Basically, anything that requires an electric current to run through them.
Prior to the bill’s introduction and quite literally stating the obvious, semiconductor chips have served as the backbone for many industries to such a point that, when the global chip shortage hit and carried on for more than two years, everyone felt it when the supply chain was disrupted.
A simple yet applicable example of the chip shortage is graphics cards. Both NVIDIA and AMD suffered from the issue of insufficient supply to make more graphics cards, and that in turn forced the two GPU makers to increase the base price of their products. It also didn’t help matters when cryptominers strangled the already suffocating stocks of GPU, buying the components in bulk. Thanks to them, gamers essentially missed out on playing with a generation of them.
Congratulations to the House and Senate for voting to approve #CHIPSAct funding. This investment will shape the future of America’s leadership in semiconductor manufacturing and innovation. We are excited to move full speed ahead to start building #IntelOhio!
— Pat Gelsinger (@PGelsinger) July 28, 2022
In any case, the bill was hailed and lauded by many industry giants, including Pat Gelsinger, Chief Executive Officer for Intel. “This investment will shape the future of America’s leadership in semiconductor manufacturing and innovation. We are excited to move full speed ahead to start building #IntelOhio!” Gelsinger tweeted after the bill went through.
On another note, US lawmakers hope that by passing this bill, the country would further reduce their dependency on their Asian counterparts to provide the much needed chips. This includes companies like the Taiwan-based TSMC or South Korea’s Samsung Electronics.
(Source: CNET)
