When the Chips Are Down

While there are many books on semiconductors by industry experts and on geopolitics by international relations scholars, this will be a rare book at the intersection of these two domains.Written in an 'Explain Like I'm 10' style for the general newspaper-reading audience.Only book on this subject that has systematically analysed the future possibilities in semiconductor geopolitics.Pranay Kotasthane is Chairperson, High-Tech Geopolitics at the Takshashila Institution. Pranay teaches public policy, foreign policy and public finance. His research on semiconductor geopolitics has been featured in several Indian and global publications. Pranay is the co-author of Missing in Action: Why You Should Care About Public Policy and co-editor of India's Marathon: Reshaping the Post-pandemic World Order. Pranay co-hosts the popular Hindi podcast Puliyabaazi. Before Takshashila, Pranay worked as a chip design engineer in two Fortune 500 semiconductor companies. Abhiram Manchi is pursuing his MBA plus MS in Digital Technology at Boston University. He has worked in the semiconductor industry for nearly five years and was involved in developing methodologies and flow for chip designers worldwide. He has written on semiconductor geopolitics for the Times of India and Hindustan Times. He is an alumnus of the Graduate Certificate in Public Policy (GCPP) course of the Takshashila Institution.To the world at large, technology was synonymous with software. Within months, the subject of such conversations has changed dramatically. Today, the hardware that runs all software - semiconductors or chips - has become a subject of WhatsApp groups and international politics. The chip shortage during COVID-19 made governments take notice of this complex supply chain. The US began denying advanced semiconductors to Chinese companies. Worsening China-Taiwan relations further intensified the debate. By 2022, China, the US, India, the EU, and Japan had released plans worth billions of dollars for setting up new semiconductor facilities. This book is a comprehensive overview of this "meta-critical" technology. How are semiconductors important from a geopolitical perspective? Why did the US and Taiwan become powerhouses in this domain while Russia and India fell behind? Is China's semiconductor sector a threat to the world? What are the future trends to watch out for? These are the questions that this book answers.A deep dive into the intriguing world of chip geopolitics. Your go-to guide to understanding the past, present and future trends in semiconductor politics.