Chip Independence: US on a Long Road Ahead, Says Nvidia CEO Huang
Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia Corp., which leads the semiconductor industry in terms of value, stated that it may take the United States up to two decades to reduce its reliance on foreign chip manufacturing.
Huang spoke at the New York Times’ DealBook conference in New York about how his company’s products rely on countless components that come from around the world — not just Taiwan, where the key elements are manufactured.
“We’re somewhere between a decade and two decades away from supply chain independence,” he said. “It’s not really a practical thing for a decade or two.”
The outlook suggests that there is a long road ahead of the Biden administration’s central goal – to bring more chip manufacturing to US shores. The president has championed bipartisan legislation to support the construction of manufacturing facilities here. And many of the biggest companies are planning to expand in the US. They include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Nvidia’s main manufacturing partner, and Samsung Electronics Co. and Intel Corp.
Europe is also trying to build more production locally. It is part of an attempt to reverse decades of globalization, which has spread production around the world, but has also led to bottlenecks in places such as Taiwan and South Korea.
Separately, Huang reaffirmed his company’s commitment to China, which remains the chip’s largest market. The company lost the ability to sell its most powerful AI processors to the country after the US government imposed and further tightened export restrictions last month. Washington believes that such actions are necessary to protect national security.
After the latest rules are announced, Nvidia will develop products for China that won’t trigger the restrictions, Huang said.
“We have to come up with new chips that comply with the regulation, and once we comply with the regulation, we’ll go back to China,” he said. “We try to do business with everyone we can. On the other hand, our national security matters. Our national competitiveness is important.”
He also warned of the unintended consequences of such rules. There are as many as 50 companies in China now working on technology that would rival Nvidia’s offerings, he said.
