Comment by mallets

5 days ago

Samsung is already in a much better position for this. They have external customers and experience facilitating them. Unlike Intel's track record which doesn't inspire confidence at all.

Intel has something Samsung doesn't. It's a US company operating mostly on US soil so the US government has a vested interest to keep this strategic asset going for as long as possible.

  • Tech hardware is a cutthroat business, tech companies are gonna order at Intel if it has something that others don't on a business point of view: more performing, cheaper, faster delivery.

    The US government can wish and encourage all they want, as long as Samsung, TSMC and any other produces better chips for less, the money will flow there.

    • Governments can keep companies working for as long as they want. Usually that makes them less competitive over time though and it is all done at the cost of the tax-payer and adjacent industries.

      The Chaebol model of Korea is a way to spin it while avoiding the less competitive part by forcing the companies to compete internationally while keeping the domestic market locked into the Chaebol offering.

      For example the US gov could force (or subsidize) all datacenters in the US to use intel chips made in intel foundries located in the US. But on the international market intel would need to compete with its rivals.

      This is all theoretically possible, but very hard to pull off politically. And it is not necessarily good for the country long term and certainly a tax to the country citizens/adjacent-companies in the short term.

    • If a government finds a sector or company to have strategic importance they will not let it die. The rest is free-market absolutism that never comes to be. I believe today more than ever the US considers Intel to be of strategic importance.

      > the money will flow there

      Which money? The CHIPS act [0] isn't only for the ones who produce "better chips for less".

      [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act

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