Other than oil. The real upcoming emergency on which the strength of the economies will be measured will be that of chip, the component now necessary to almost everything that is produced. The industries know something about it, starting with the car, affected by the drop in supplies that translates into new stops in production, as happens in Melfi which cannot meet Jeep's request. But Russian generals also mourn the delays in assembling weapons. Both conventional ones to be used on tanks and those to be mounted on missiles to shake the bogeyman of the nucleatr threat. The new boundary line for measuring efficiency and strategic strength between advanced economies and does not pass by semiconductor control ever smaller but ever more powerful coming from companies as strategic as they are unknown. Suffice it to mention the production process of iPhone 14, Apple's latest creature: the initial project saw the light in the Cupertino laboratories but the development of the prototype was handled by Tsmc in Hsinchu, in the heart of Taiwan. Production? A bit in China, but less and less given the problems posed by Covid. A bit in India waiting to move lines in Vietnam.
Washington's anti-Beijing maneuvers: hands off chip island
The real concern is to prevent Beijing from getting its hands on the secrets of the most advanced productions: the smallest chips, wonders from 5/7 nanometers (much smaller than the covid 19) that China is unable to produce today (it does not go below 10 nanometers). Hence the US commitment to defend at all costs the independence of the island from the Dragon that threatens more and more closely Taiwan independence: hands off chip island. And, of course, from the fruits of the most advanced research in the digital.
How was communicated to Nvidia and to Amd, California companies that have been banned from selling chips to China that can accelerate the development of applications in artificial intelligence.
I chip, in short, they are the bottleneck through which all the protagonists of the post-global world have to pass, where freedom of trade has now given way to the control of know-how and technologies. It is not possible to think ofself-driving cars or atspace economy without the control of the technologies in the past given too generously by the West to China. Thing of the past. Now Washington, it allows big ones contributions (up to 50 billion dollars) to Asian companies willing to invest in the USA. And in the meantime it closes the borders to Beijing companies with the aim of being able to influence the development of the Chinese economy thanks to relationships with leading companies.
Tsmc: the goose that lays the golden eggs
At the top of the list is the jewel of Taiwan: Tsmc, by far the most efficient and advanced company on the planet, with a capitalization of over 400 billion dollars, founded in the late seventies by a scientist morris chang who managed to convince the country's leaders to invest massively in the development of semiconductor architectures and, even more, in the formation of an army of engineers. Over the years, this primacy has further strengthened due to the satisfaction of large investors (first of all the Vanguard funds) who have focused on the development of the colossus which, over the last twenty years, has made other shareholders almost 19% per year .
Asml: the trump card of the Old Continent in the chip challenge
But you don't have to go that far to discover another gold chip company. In Veldhoven, a suburb of Eundhoven, the cradle of Philips, in 1984 a handful of engineers coming out of the electronics giant, decided to embark on the adventure of Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography (i.e. ASML), a brand unknown to the general public but behind which is hidden a company worth around 200 billion euro on the Stock Exchange (a third of the entire Stock Exchange), currently employs around 34 people, one tenth of whom are employed in last six months, and guarantees "an infinite growth rate for now" in the Netherlands and outside. A sort of miracle made possible by chip making machines through a process of photolithography which makes possible the production of "fleas" of 5 nanometers, or 5 billionths of a metre, 6 times finer than a hair. Just a step towards the future because ASML machines no longer need a silicon support but they run on the light to guarantee new records for their customers. Basically all the companies in the sector, from Taiwan to the USA. Up to China. At least until yesterday because it rained directly from Washington on the Dutch premier Mark Rutte an aut. Asml, from now on, will no longer have to sell to Beijing.
Will it go like this? Much will depend on the European Union. Asml is the best card available to the Old Continent to enter the chip challenge. As long as the energy crisis does not convince us to revise the 42 billion plan from Brussels already voted to strengthen Europe's presence in this area. But it would be a real harakiri, as demonstrated by the deserted assembly lines of Melfi these days.
