Chip Craze: Framing Industrial Policy for the AI Era
Summary
Daleep Singh interviews Mike Schmidt, former director of the US Chips Office, on executing the CHIPS Act to bolster domestic semiconductor manufacturing. They discuss the massive AI capex cycle, the challenges of building fabs, and the shift from training to inference compute. Schmidt critiques the government’s equity stake in Intel, arguing for grants tied to milestones, and defines supply chain resilience against geopolitical coercion rather than just economic shocks.
Topics discussed
The AI Capex Boom and National Security Stakes
Training vs. Inference Compute and Intel's Tailwind
CHIPS Act Status: Investments and Leading-Edge Production
Fab Construction Challenges: Labor, Infrastructure, and Time
Government Risk Aversion and Industrial Policy Design
US Chip Manufacturing Clusters and Ecosystem Projects
Defining Supply Chain Resilience vs. Dominance
Intel Equity Stake and Foundry Business Outlook
The 'Silicon Shield' and Final Thoughts
Listen ad-free on Castria