Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang, who runs the semiconductor industry’s most valuable company, said the US is as much as 20 years away from breaking its dependence on overseas chipmaking.
I think you’d be surprised how much of even modern capacities can be traced back to simple things like the availability of water and shipping access. Sure, Taiwan isn’t a world leader in chips because of their weather today. But their climate is key to their population size via how many people they can feed, which is quite weather dependent. Having robust food supply is what allows a society to specialize its labor into technology, industry, and modernization. And why is Taiwan in an entrepreneurial mode to make such investments at all? Because of their geography - as an island they were not so easily taken by the CCP and the PRC have been able to hold out there for many decades.
Basically, yes, it’s just several decades of investment that has led to their dominance. But they were only in a position to do all of that because of their starting conditions. They played their conditions masterfully. But for example the DRC couldn’t go do the same thing tomorrow.
I think you’d be surprised how much of even modern capacities can be traced back to simple things like the availability of water and shipping access. Sure, Taiwan isn’t a world leader in chips because of their weather today. But their climate is key to their population size via how many people they can feed, which is quite weather dependent. Having robust food supply is what allows a society to specialize its labor into technology, industry, and modernization. And why is Taiwan in an entrepreneurial mode to make such investments at all? Because of their geography - as an island they were not so easily taken by the CCP and the PRC have been able to hold out there for many decades.
Basically, yes, it’s just several decades of investment that has led to their dominance. But they were only in a position to do all of that because of their starting conditions. They played their conditions masterfully. But for example the DRC couldn’t go do the same thing tomorrow.