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| The European Union wants to double production of chips |
The European Union hopes to double its chip production by 2030, to 20% of the global market. This goal is part of the new "Digital Compass" program, which aims to enhance digital sovereignty by financing various high-level programs.
The union also hopes that by 2030 all households will have access to 5G and Gigabit, that all public services in all member states can be used online and that European groups will also have their first quantum computer.
These and other EU coronavirus response funds total 672.5 billion euros (800 billion US dollars), of which 20% (160 billion US dollars) will be spent on technology investments.
The European Union's drive to produce more chips is particularly noteworthy as maintaining a stable supply of these chips for neighboring countries has become an issue after the supply chain has been disrupted by the global impact of the pandemic and the US-China trade war afflicting the world. Become. Delivery.
As with the influx of large amounts of resources (such as oil), many industries and products, from cell phones to cars, require the latest chipsets.
Currently, most of the production is concentrated in Asia, mainly Taiwan and South Korea.
In February, US President Biden signed a decree to investigate how the United States could support the chip industry.
Biden said: It's about making sure the United States is able to meet all the challenges we face in this new era of the pandemic, and it's also about national defense network security, climate change, etc.
As Margaret Westager, European Commission Vice President at the start of the Digital Compass project, said, the concerns of the European Union reflect those of the United States: We need to reduce our concerns about technology to others.
Making chips in the European Union is a difficult task. Semiconductor manufacturing is a very expensive business. The main success of European companies lies in the machines used in the manufacturing process, not the chips themselves.
The Dutch company ASML holds most of the market share in the manufacture of devices, the so-called lithography machines, which are essential for making chips.
As China has shown, spending money on chips does not guarantee success. In the past few decades, the number of semiconductor companies in Europe has decreased. You will have to work hard to take the lead in the United States and Asia, and the United States and Asia are also investing heavily.