Currently, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more on chips than any other product, is pouring billions into a chip-building Manhattan Project to catch up to the US. (Virtually everything runs on chips: cars, phones, the stock market, even the electric grid.) Now that edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by the naïve assumption that globalising the chip industry and letting players in Taiwan, Korea and Europe take over manufacturing serves America's interests. America has maintained its lead as a superpower because it has dominated advances in computer chips and all the technology that chips have enabled. Power in the modern world - military, economic, geopolitical - is built on a foundation of computer chips. Illuminating, timely, and fascinating, Chip War is “an essential and engrossing landmark study' ( London Times).Winner of the Financial Times Business Book of the Year AwardĪn epic account of the decades-long battle to control the world's most critical resource-microchip technology. Until recently, China had been catching up, aligning its chip-building ambitions with military modernization. America’s victory in the Cold War and its global military dominance stems from its ability to harness computing power more effectively than any other power. At stake is America’s military superiority and economic prosperity.Įconomic historian Chris Miller explains how the semiconductor came to play a critical role in modern life and how the US became dominant in chip design and manufacturing and applied this technology to military systems.

Now, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more on chips than any other product, is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the US. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower, but America’s edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by players in Taiwan, Korea, and Europe taking over manufacturing. Virtually everything-from missiles to microwaves-runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil-the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. The Financial Times Business Book of the Year, this epic account of the decades-long battle to control one of the world’s most critical resources-microchip technology-with the United States and China increasingly in fierce competition is “pulse quickening…a nonfiction thriller” ( The New York Times).

Putinomics by Chris Miller