Running in the background to the more visible, very real wars occurring around the world at present, is a trade war over chip production between China and the US.

Running in the background to the more visible, very real wars occurring around the world at present, there is another, economic and industrial in nature. This is a trade war between two principals: the United States and China. The potential consequences of this trade war are incredibly significant to global geopolitics, as how the interaction between the two parties is handled will determine a basis for any future cooperation between the two principals as well as their respective allies.

This trade war is over the production of semiconductor chips. In IDTechEx s recent report AI Chips 2023-2033 , the market research firm highlights the part that artificial intelligence (AI) plays in this trade war, where the race for AI supremacy has become a national concern.

But before discussing the role of AI, it is more instructive to start at the beginning or thereabouts. This does not require going so far back in time – only five years, in fact, to 2018. From January of that year, under the presidency of Donald Trump formerly and now President Joe Biden, the United States has enforced several layers of restrictions and barriers to trade on China where semiconductors are concerned, each successive layer aiming to plug a hole that the previous layer(s) had left. These restrictions are shown below.

10/17-19 EAC