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The chips chokehold that could end the AI investment boom
Taiwan, which controls over 90% of leading-edge silicon chips, lies on a geostrategic fault line.
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The rise of Taiwan’s chip industry is one of the most remarkable industrial stories of our century.
PHOTO: AFP
John Thornhill
Iran’s effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has highlighted the alarming impact of tightening a trading chokehold. Yet there is an even bigger potential pain point in the global economy: Taiwan’s control of more than 90 per cent of the world’s leading-edge silicon chips, which run almost every Western smartphone, data centre, AI model and smart weapons system.
The rise of Taiwan’s chip industry is one of the most remarkable industrial stories of our century. But the island of 23 million people lies on a geostrategic – as well as a seismological – fault line, roughly 160km off the coast of China.
