The United States recently embarked on a very ambitious, but also very interesting project, which aims to rebuild and strengthen its position in the semiconductor manufacturing sector. In this sense, the CHIPS Act has emerged as one of the fundamental pillars to be able to carry out this project, although with important nuances that will make things difficult for some companies.
Before getting into the matter, it is important to remember what exactly the CHIPS Act is, also known as the “CHIPS Law”. This is a bill that is still pending approval, and that includes the granting of significant aid to companies that want to establish new facilities dedicated to the manufacture of semiconductors in the United States. This represents a significant investment by the United States, since semiconductors have become a fundamental part of our society, so it is not surprising that said law contemplates aid for a total of 52,000 million dollars.
So far so good, but in order to access this aid it will be necessary to meet a series of key requirements. Technically the CHIPS Act has been designed to help first, and to a greater extent, national companies, which means that Intel will be one of the great beneficiaries. Have a greater production capacity of semiconductors locally reduces dependency on third partiesand would allow the United States to deal with potential trade conflicts or tensions that may limit, in whole or in part, its access to semiconductors.
We have already seen the first “but”, and that is that the CHIPS Act is generating some discomfort among the companies that aspire to get part of those funds because, in the end, they feel that there will be a certain favoritism in the distribution thereof. On the other hand, in order to access these funds, companies should refrain from building or expanding its facilities in “unfriendly” countrieswhich in the end could end up putting more than one company in a complicated situation.
We will see how this situation evolves and how those funds are distributed in the end. At the moment, Intel is still waiting for said law to be approved in order to start work on its new factory in Ohio. It will also be interesting to see how all highly specialized jobs are filled that will be created with the construction of these new factories. It may be that, in the end, it will be necessary to resort more to immigration.
