This is how places like the US despite having 4% of the population have about a quarter of the material and energy consumption. Not to single them out, I am in Australia, it is a similar ratio.
I am not defending this situation, just highlighting its role.
Like, it might but if resources are equally distributed then raiding your neighbors for more is one of the best ways to get more of them.
Does no one study history? War wasn't invented in the 20th century.
Chimps in the damn jungle go to war with each other.
"No wars have been more ruthless and ravaging than “just” wars, fought in “defense” of religion, honor, or principle. If war must be, give me rather a war to capture an enemy’s wealth and territory, based on honest greed, in which I shall be careful not to destroy what I want to possess. " - Alan Watts
22nm is already overkill for a lot of applications. But, like, if your country gets embargoed, you should be able to make computer chips for cars and farming equipment. Top end GPUs? Not necessary. Some basic RISC-V cpu for compute appliances? That should be a capability that everybody has.
This part of why I have been advocating for years that the open source/free software folks should be focusing on optimization and stability/security as long term it will probably be much more useful that adding features that can be dumped on top.
The problem with bleeding-edge fab is it's a (fast) moving target. It's not a solved problem. And customers can't simply migrate their designs to a different fab, as the designs are increasingly specific to a process.
I do think we need more fabs but not this kind. Very low cost fabs with standardized PDK and open(ish) tools, should be as simple as ordering a PCB. Not going to happen anytime soon though, needs old fabs to stop production and the bleeding-edge to hit a hard wall. Can't compete with fully depreciated legacy fabs/nodes.
In case the first backup fails.
What are the chances that both a primary system and its backup would fail at the same time?
And for what?
You can go for full efficiency if you want, but then like the US auto manufacturers learned during Covid, you don’t have any way to handle disruptions to your business
If what you said were true, it would be cheaper for there to be only one flavor of soda (as Bernie Sanders might have put it) rather than dozens.
Competition is better for consumers than monopoly, and that applies even when the consumers are nations.
Thus to sustain those industries (semiconductor fabrication in this case) industrial policy (subsidies, tariffs, government investment, “Buy American” rules, … ) is essential.
