SEMICONDUCTORSWhy Experts Are Calling for a New Strategy to Improve U.S. Access to Semiconductors ― The Technology that Underpins Artificial Intelligence
While the U.S. first developed semiconductors and led globally in semiconductor development and manufacturing in the last century, today it produces just 12% of all semiconductors. A new report from the National Academies recommends actions for the U.S. Department of Defense ― coordinating with the commercial sector, universities, and other parts of government ― to secure its access to this critical technology.
Every advanced AI program ― from the widely available ChatGPT to those run by the Defense Department ― depends on access to semiconductors. These computer chips are in almost every digital device today, and newer semiconductor technology is essential for the enormous computing power that AI requires.
While the U.S. first developed semiconductors and led globally in semiconductor development and manufacturing in the last century, today it produces just 12% of all semiconductors. Following passage of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, the federal government has embarked on a sweeping effort to promote and protect U.S. leadership in the semiconductor industry to ensure economic and national security. A new report from the National Academiesrecommends actions for the U.S. Department of Defense ― coordinating with the commercial sector, universities, and other parts of government ― to secure its access to this critical technology.
We spoke with the chair of the committee that wrote the report, Liesl Folks, director of the Center for Semiconductor Manufacturing and professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Arizona, about how access to semiconductors is shaping AI and what the report’s recommendations could mean for its future.
Why is access to semiconductors so critical for advancing AI?
Folks: All AI models are trained on highly complex semiconductor chips that are custom designed to perform particular mathematical operations quickly on very large amounts of data. As amazing as AI seems today, it is expected to get much better, quickly, as better semiconductor chips are produced to meet this need. And, AI technology holds enormous promise for defense applications, both to assist in the processing of data in data centers and in so-called “edge-computing” situations such as for accelerated vision processing in augmented reality headsets used by pilots.
So, in order to remain competitive with other nations, the DOD needs access to the latest AI chips.
The challenge that our new report highlights is that today these chips are likely to be designed in the U.S., but manufactured in Taiwan, and DOD’s current procurement policies and practices create barriers to use of chips manufactured in non-U.S.-based sites. Effectively, the DOD will be unable to keep up with innovations happening around the world unless it can gain access to the most advanced semiconductors being manufactured today.
