Nvidia CEO says the US will take 20 years to achieve chipmaking independence from China and Taiwan, despite booming fab construction and subsidies
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, believes it might take the U.S. up to two decades to become self-reliant in chip manufacturing. This statement comes from the head of the company that has historically relied on chip production in Taiwan, and significant efforts by the U.S. and Europe to localize the crucial industry. However, the chip industry is clearly expanding in America at a rate unseen in decades, so he might be too skeptical.
“We are somewhere between a decade and two decades away from supply chain independence,” said Jensen Huang, speaking at the New York Times’s DealBook conference in New York, reports Bloomberg. “It is not a really practical thing for a decade or two.”
The U.S. government is actively pursuing policies to increase chip manufacturing within its borders. This initiative has garnered bipartisan support, focusing on establishing more manufacturing facilities stateside. The goal is to mitigate reliance on external sources and strengthen national technology infrastructure.
So far, the plan has been a success as Intel, TSMC, and Samsung Foundry are building their advanced and leading-edge fabs in the USA. Furthermore, Micron is set to bring advanced 3D NAND and DRAM memory production to America for the first time in decades. Intel is also building advanced chip packaging facilities in America. There are also companies, such as GlobalFoundries, that produce chips on specialty and mature process technologies in the U.S.
Huang noted that Nvidia’s products rely on plenty of components that come from different parts of the world, and he does not see all of them produced in the U.S. any time soon. Therefore, his assessments highlight the company’s current reliance on international supply chains and the complexity and extent of the global chip industry.
