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​CHIP WAR​

Chip War is an epic account of the decades long battle to control what has emerged as the world’s most critical resource microchip technology with the United States and China increasingly in conflict. Many would be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything from missiles to microwaves, smartphones to the stock market, runs on semiconductors. Now, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more money importing chips than any other product, is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch the US’s lead. At stake is not only America’s economic prosperity but also its military superiority. Right now the US is trying to cut off China’s ability to make advanced semiconductors, on the judgment that advanced semiconductors are critical to training AI systems. If you can’t get access to the most advanced chips, then you can’t make meaningful advances in AI. To make an advanced semiconductor, you need to buy machine tools from just a handful of companies around the world that have the precision capabilities to manufacture these tools. One of the most important of these companies is a firm called ASML, which is based in the Netherlands. It has unique capabilities which no one else in the world can replicate to produce a type of machine called an EUV lithography tool, without which making an advanced chip is simply impossible.

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