Comment by lesuorac
20 hours ago
> And conversely, it may say something about their internal forecasts that they're not making the bet.
Idk if you can read into it that way.
All these companies have cafeterias but you don't see them investing into farmland so they can get their bananas a few cents cheaper.
But also why bother spending 20B on a fab when you can invest 20B into TSMC and let them build the fab?
Probably for strategic reasons.
Mainland China is one concern.
Another is AI being the commodity compliment to semiconductors.
Because having every major company in America’s eggs in one basket is as insane as it gets, especially with China bearing down on Taiwan.
That’s an entirely different framework, one that doesn’t concern investment decisions of Apple or Google.
I do agree that USA and EU could foot the bill and subsidize a couple billions in such industrial infrastructure, perhaps taking back a cut of the profit rather than privatizing all of it.
But they’re not doing it, or are making pitiful efforts at that
It's just an insane amount of money to invest with the long-term effect of you oversaturating the chip market.
Throwing 20B into a chip fab in the EU would be politically a very unpopular move, if it's done as a public company or worse directly state owned, you'll royally piss of Taiwan, South Korea and China and it's likely they'd retaliate by e.g. subsidising their auto industry more in order to give the death blow to the EU auto industry.
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