Historian Chris Miller, – Professor of International History at the Fletcher School of Tufts University, Massachusetts, in his ‘Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology’ tells us something as simple as it is important: global power today is built on micro-chips. His book is an in-depth historical-political analysis of the race for technological supremacy that runs through the geopolitical balances and imbalances of our present and above all, our future.
From smartphones to computers, from weapon systems to satellites, from the stock market to industrial control systems, practically everything works today thanks to a tiny yet powerful resource: microchips. Global political, economic and military balances depend on this sophisticated technology, which requires extremely high innovation and industrial capacity, huge economic resources and complicated patents. Until a few years ago, this capacity was in the hands of the most cutting-edge American companies, the domain of Silicon Valley and the crown jewel of the Pentagon. But things have changed: the primacy of the United States is being challenged by numerous competitors, who are investing the best available talent in this technology, with China leading the way. As if that were not enough, central to the competition between the two powers is Taiwan, which alone produces more than half of the advanced chips for global needs. The future of semiconductors will depend precisely on this island in the China Sea, which Beijing threatens and considers a rebellious province and which Washington has instead pledged to protect, even militarily.
In his book, historian Chris Miller portrays with incredible accuracy the scenario of competition between the United States and China that is emerging in our present day – actually born and developed decades ago – emphasizing how technology is one of its primary elements and a formidable leverage of power in the international scenario.
It all began when some scientists like William Shockley, the father of Silicon Valley, realized that the primitive computers and computing machines used to drop bombs and decrypt messages during the Second World War would be enormously more powerful if the dusty valves were replaced by a certain type of material called semiconductors. Silicon and germanium, the material of which they are mainly composed, resemble glass, hardly transmitting any electricity; but if some material is added to them and an electric field is applied, the current begins to flow. By “doping” semiconductors with other elements, the opportunity was offered to create and control electric currents. But this possibility could only be dreamt of at the time; how they worked remained largely a mystery. No one at the time was able to explain why semiconductor plates behaved in such a mysterious way. Shockley was the first to theorize in 1945, that under those conditions, a semiconductor could be transformed into a conductor like a metal and thus carry electrical energy. The ‘transistor’ was born, and American industry immediately realized that these new instruments would be used in equipment such as the radio, instead of the now obsolete valves.
As is often the case with technological breakthroughs, however, almost no one at the time thought they were facing a scientific revolution, no one imagined that those pieces of silicon would, within a few decades, be able to replace millions of human brains in computing. The story of semiconductors begins, with their potential only starting to be understood at the end of the 1950s, thanks to visionary – and sometimes paranoid – entrepreneurs and scientists, with strong political connections, like Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce – the latter being co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel. Kilby and Noyce made a breakthrough in the history of the chip, aiming to replace the jungle of wires required by systems that grouped transistors. They miniaturized and improved the efficiency of transistors through a powerful intuition that opened up new and unknown scenarios in the microelectronics market. They co-invented the ‘integrated circuit’, which would later be known as the ‘chip’. This tool, barely larger than a fingernail at the time, would power the circuits of the Apollo 11 computer that landed on the Moon and the circuits of the Minuteman missile.
The ability to leverage computing power more effectively than any other nation through the use of chips became the foundation of America’s global military dominance, defining every phase of the Cold War. According to Miller, the United States “won” the Cold War precisely because of its capacity for innovation and investment in technology. This is one of the key points of the book, as it explains how the Soviet Union—despite having its own “Silicon Valley” in the city of Zelenograd—made numerous mistakes in its chip manufacturing processes. While America unleashed the creative genius of its entrepreneurs, the Soviets stifled it. Soviet bureaucracy, obsessed with keeping up with America’s progress, believed that the best approach was to copy the U.S. as closely as possible. But while this strategy proved effective in building nuclear arsenals, it failed in the chip industry. Taking the fruit doesn’t teach you how to grow the tree.
But the story of the development and proliferation of microchips is not solely “American.” There’s also a Europe that, during the 1960s, failed to grasp the technological breakthrough of chips – illustrated by an anecdote involving Charles De Gaulle, who sniffed and looked puzzled and offended at a transistor radio gifted to him by Japanese Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda in 1962, dismissing it as a gaudy toy for the petit bourgeoisie.
Then there’s Japan, which introduced microchips into the global consumer market through its most representative company, Sony.
But most importantly, there’s Taiwan and China. When Beijing tested its first nuclear weapon in 1964, facing the threat of a nuclear-armed China, Taiwan realized it needed American security guarantees more than ever. That dialogue and overseas alliance laid the foundation for the creation of the world’s most important tech manufacturer, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), without which the computer I’m writing on wouldn’t exist. Leading this company was Morris Chang, now 93, an undisputed global leader in technological diplomacy and the mastermind behind the global chip industry. He has helped make Taiwan the nerve center of the entire global chip supply chain, the epicenter of the geopolitical-technological clash.
The real challenge, centered around Taiwan, is between the United States and China. As Miller described, the dominance of the industry remains in Washington’s hands, but its supremacy is far from guaranteed. High-power chips have been as crucial as hydrocarbons in fueling China economic growth. But unlike oil, the supply of chips is monopolized by Beijing’s geopolitical rivals.
As a result, China has done everything it can to bring as many of these products into its own country, using its state-backed companies to steal intellectual property and close its market of 1.4 billion people to foreign companies. America has seen this before with Japan in the 1980s, but while Japan failed, there are fears that China might succeed, potentially disrupting the global semiconductor industry.
The story of microchips is an incredible one, which Miller describes in great detail, without skipping any historical steps, but most importantly, highlighting the geopolitical aspect of an industry that has evolved from a “niche” market to the backbone of the entire global electronics market. Gordon Moore, also a co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel, predicted in 1965 that the number of transistors an engineer could fit onto a silicon chip would double roughly every two years. This projection has been confirmed so remarkably over the decades that it is now known as ‘Moore’s Law’. Sixty years ago, four transistors could fit on a chip. Today, about 11.8 billion can. It is therefore easy to imagine the power of these tools, but above all, their strategic importance for military applications and for the electronic devices used in the daily lives of billions of people.
To conclude, Miller, through his must-read volume, warns us that the chip industry, this invisible yet strategic supply chain, today determines both the structure of the global economy and the balance of geopolitical power. And also our future.
