After the CHIPS Act: The Limits of Reshoring and Next Steps for U.S. Semiconductor Policy
Categories Project, Publication
A co-authored a paper with Vishnu Kannan for the Carnegie Endowment that assess the extent to which the recently passed CHIPS and Science Act will solve the semiconductor supply chain issues that U.S. policymakers are concerned about.
As America’s conscious foray into industrial policy, the CHIPS Act is an important political breakthrough and a potentially transformative piece of legislation. It highlighted that the United States, despite its dysfunction, is capable of mobilizing large amounts of money to meet strategic challenges. But the CHIPS Act will only partially address the most dangerous risks to the semiconductor supply chain. More fully addressing them will require specific actions, such as carefully monitoring the balance between new fabrication and packaging capacity. To more fully close the gaps, the CHIPS Implementation Steering Council, the Commerce Department, and others must strengthen the foundations of U.S. semiconductor policy by gathering and analyzing supply chain data, setting measurable targets for CHIPS Act investments, and conducting planning exercises that simulate a potential semiconductor supply chain crisis.