The Most Amazing — and Dangerous — Technology in the World
About this episode
Chris Miller, author of 'Chip War,' explains how semiconductors became 'the most amazing — and dangerous — technology in the world.' He traces the chip's history from the US military's early patronage through Moore's Law to today's extreme concentration: Taiwan's TSMC fabricates the vast majority of advanced chips, with Dutch company ASML holding a monopoly on the lithography machines needed to make them. Klein and Miller discuss chips as 'weaponized interdependence' — the foundation of AI, modern weapons, and the digital economy — and why Russia's invasion of Ukraine exposed the technology gap. They debate US export controls on China under Trump and Biden, the CHIPS and Science Act's bet on reshoring fabrication, and the harder problems of talent, permitting, and immigration that determine whether it succeeds. The episode's warning is that the technology underpinning AI supremacy rests on a fragile, Taiwan-centered supply chain that geopolitics is actively fracturing.