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Comment by tester756 | Hacker News Reader

>big government and a fancy stock manipulation scheme.

What's wrong with US gov caring about supply chain and manufacturing capability of the most needed technology right there - on American soil?

It is in US' interest to be able to produce such complex tech locally

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Yes, it's called industrial policy and it can work very well.

Yes and it can also reduce competitive forces which were driving Intel to innovate. The goal of a robust supply chain is not aligned with the goal of technical supremacy. Sure, the US did achieve technical supremacy in the past with government intervention and assistance, but the world was much different then. Now the US has to compete with East Asian innovation.

Asian innovation often is the result of industrial policy to get started. Once it gets going, the state can and should let go and let market forces work.

I don't think that the basic situation has changed in that regard. China is currently trying hard to catch up in semiconductor manufacturing and AI. It seems to be working somewhat for AI (Qwen), we need to wait and see about semi manufacturing. A curious and long-term failure so far is civil aviation.

Samsung has a Texas fab(and AAPL is in discussions with them alongside INTC).

The issue for some is the driving force is military, to secure their supply chain to kill people.

Counter point: Apple exists in their size because of the US’s willingness to keep shipping lanes and trade routes open by use of force and US diplomatic efforts to allow for trade to exist in foreign nations. It’s debatable if this still holds true or is the correct approach given the shitshow going on right now.

It's also a major concern to have a supply chain that can be protected from foreign manipulation.

A compromised supply chain is a huge intelligence/national security risk, not just for military platforms but everything from government and commercial datacenters to personal devices used by both public and private sector individuals.

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