A geo-economic choice: silicon vs bio-engineered semiconductors

Semiconductors are among the most precious commodities in the modern world. They are essential components in everything from digital clocks and microwave ovens to hypersonic ballistic missiles and autonomous vehicles. Their global manufacture is also dominated by a single country: Taiwan. At first glance, the United States’ recent measures to greatly increase its domestic silicon-chip production might appear to make economic and geopolitical sense. This article, however, argues that US efforts will likely be unsuccessful for two main reasons. Firstly, due to workforce limitations and structural challenges, even over the longer term it is unlikely that the US will be able to rival Taiwan as a maker of the most advanced silicon chips. Secondly, building fabrication facilities in the US will take years, if not decades. Recent breakthroughs in synthetic biology, bio-engineering and computing point to possibly fundamental transformations in semiconductor capacity, capability, composition and manufacture. The likely time horizon for bringing these new chips to market is within the next couple of decades. This article concludes that investing in synthetic-biology innovation is a better geo-economic and geopolitical strategy for the United States than focusing on silicon-chip manufacturing.