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Semiconductors: from supply chains to AI

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Description

Total length of the course: 4+ hours

Semiconductors have moved from niche technology to the heart of national security debates, and this course traces how. Follow the chip’s history from Cold War origins through the rise of Taiwan and Fabless Firms to China’s current ambitions, map today’s extraordinarily complex global supply chain, and explore the three broad policy buckets states use to intervene, asking what makes this such a hard problem and whether export controls are actually working.

Content details

Introduction
Introduction
What are semiconductors?
Why do semiconductors matter?
A brief history
Introduction
Three broad stages
The origin of semiconductors
Globalisation, specialisation, and diversification
The USSR
The emergence of Japan
The pivot to South Korea
Taiwan and Fabless firms
The view from China
Today's supply chains
Introduction
From sand to silicon
Where do performance gains come from?
The case for policy intervention
Policy conversations across three buckets
Relevant geopolitical variables
What is animating the current geopolitical moment?
Globalisation
Balance of power
Institutional gridlock and jostling
Weaponised interdependence
Rise of transactional approaches and retrenchment
Fulcrum technologies
State intervention
Why might states intervene in the semiconductor market?
What makes intervention hard?
Three categories of market intervention
Export controls
Have export controls been successful?
How do states intervene? Recap