Peter S. Goodman

Computer chips are the brains of just about everything.

The iPhone in your hand, the data centers that are getting built all over the place to make artificial intelligence work.

They're going into our cars.

They're going into our appliances.

I mean, it's pretty hard to think about any manufactured product now that doesn't have some kind of computer chip.

It's a big deal.

I mean, it is the most palpable manifestation of this really, I think you can say national aspiration to build things in America again.

But there are some complications.

This company that's building these factories is not American.

It's Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., TSMC as it's known.

It is a Taiwanese company.

It is a very successful Taiwanese company.

But it's also been an excruciating pain for TSMC to get this thing built.

With American subsidies, with a whole political process designed to bring this about, it's still been slow, expensive, and difficult.

And so it really raises the question, is this a triumph?

Is this the template for how we can do this going forward?

Or is this the cautionary tale?

Look, you have to go back...

to the pandemic, which was the great reveal that it's not such a great idea to concentrate nearly all of the production of vital things in single countries.

So, you know, waking up and discovering that you really can't make a ventilator in the middle of a pandemic unless you import stuff from China.