Comment by nicoburns

> I fear this requires serious governmental interventions - simply due to the massive amounts of money involved

Probably. And I suspect it will happen. Chips are crucial, and the governments know it.

Mind you, Apple also has large sums of money available (I suspect more than they know what to do with). So some of that going towards propping up Intel may be no bad thing.

> Unfortunately, I also can't see any government willing to put the money on the table to establish a third party from scratch.

I believe the Chinese government is in the process of doing this with SMIC. It seems likely that they will be competitive before too long.