"A country with experience in fab construction can build one faster and cheaper than a country with no experience"
Yeah, not really surprising
this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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If you thought GPUs were pricey now. At least the rest of the world can still buy from Taiwan.
Also because we dont have the construction experience of building FAB's, and we have different building regulation and standards.
25% tariffs on steel also wont make it any cheaper.
Yes, and with all that combined twice as expensive and twice longer is kinda fine. Provided it will function.
EDIT: Except if ever TSMC Taiwan foundries' monopoly is no more, this means loss of a very specific kind of shield of Taiwan's de facto independence, which may cause a lot of interesting developments.
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Global foundries has a fab nearby, and all they produce are those chips for the old obsolete cars put out by Ford
Not everything has to be latest gen CPUs, there will always be a market for 555 timers and ESP32s
Plus, these have to be automotive grade, which requires a higher tier of durability. Not a lot of profit margin to be made on those sorts of devices.
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“Free trade” means letting everyone do what they’re best at and then exchange the goods they produce. This is so that everybody is focused on what works best in their country, everything is done as well and as cheaply as possible. However this makes no guarantee about any one country’s ability, at the end of the day, to stand alone without dependencies on others for vital goods. In fact if anything it works against that.
I don’t know why Trump talks about globalism as some Democrat thing. It’s his own party that has been driving for free trade since forever.
"Free trade" means big countries dominating smaller ones. In what way can a small Caribbean nation compete with the US for example? Say they have a self sustaining economy. They have farms to feed their people, and textile mills to clothe them. Free trade opens their markets up, and they are quickly overwhelmed by the mega corps and their economies of scale. Now local industry is driven out of business or subsumed by foreign competitors. Maybe tourism? Multinationals buy up all the hotels, beaches and restaurants. Locals get minimum wage jobs serving and cleaning. Any attempt at "protectionism" incurs penalties under the free trade agreements.
Well, Taiwan and Singapore are able to be competitive in the world market, despite being very small and lacking major resource advantages or big militaries. They do this by developing very sophisticated expertise and pressing the few very particular advantages they have.
There are exceptions of course, but they are often less about "finding a niche", and more about politics. Taiwan is an important client state of the US for geopolitical strategy. Such relationships can include more favorable trade deals. I don't know much about Singapore except that that it's all about the finance "industry". Seems like it's the place where Eastern and Western billionaires can make financial transactions with each other.
Taiwan absolutely found a niche. Its manufacturing capability is what makes it a strategic ally for the US.
Singapore’s niche is more like several niches from financial services to precision manufacturing and medical research. But it all runs on their skilled workforce. Not “politics.”
A niche will be based on whatever you have. If you have nothing but cheap labor, that’s not great, but it is something. To sell that labor to wealthy foreign corporations isn’t just getting dominated by them, it’s how China has raised millions out of poverty.
Being poor and undeveloped is a shitty hand to try to play, but that doesn’t change the game. Use what you have. Find what you’re best at.
I'm saying Taiwan was able to develop its niche due to its strategic (geographic) interest to the US, not the other way around. China has raised millions out of poverty via cheap labor, yes. However, the reason is that its size allows it to maintain ownership of the profits, which are reinvested in China.
“Free trade” means letting everyone do what they’re best at and then exchange the goods they produce
If that were the case there would not be Plaza accords, dismemberment of Angstrom and the absolute annihilation of industry in the post-soviet states. "Free trade" is and always has been a fanciful banner for wealth extraction
Free trade is the best system for 90 % of an economy. I will take a dump on Trump any day, maybe twice , but having a small capacity to build your own silicon chip is mandatory in case of a military conflict. Covid wasn’t a planned military conflict and first world economies couldn’t produce mask, gown… and luckily the virus wasn’t so deadly and only a small % of the population died.
I am Canadian… by any free trade perspective it looks like we should buy our milk from countries with less harsh winter… but then we would be on our knee if an idiot decide to bully us with a duty tax.
There should be free trade for 90 % of a country gdp and elected officials can change their list of excluded 10 % every few years.
Are you saying that 10% of an economy is vital goods and the other 90% is not? Not that I have any numbers on this but 10% seems low to me.
10 % isn’t based on anything but let’s imagine: 2-4 % military 1 % communication infrastructure, media and unbiased information 2-4 % healthcare 2-4 % food. You quickly get to 10%. Too big and you loose the benefit of free trade.
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For now.
Yep that 24/7 round-the-clock construction and experience in Taiwan surely would contribute significantly to the difference.
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