Business | The silicon squeeze

The American chip industry’s $1.5trn meltdown

Thank the boom-and-bust cycle—and America’s government

|San Francisco

In licking county, Ohio, fleets of dump trucks and bulldozers are shifting earth on the future site of chip factories. Intel is building two “fabs” there at a cost of around $20bn. In March President Joe Biden called this expanse of dirt a “field of dreams” in his state-of-the-union message. It was “the ground on which America’s future will be built”, he intoned.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “The silicon squeeze”

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