The Looming Taiwan Chip Disaster That Silicon Valley Has Long Ignored

New York Times ^ | 02/24/2026 | Tripp Mickle

[SeekAndFind]

If China invades Taiwan and cuts off its chip exports to American companies, the tech industry and the U.S. economy would be crippled.

Federal officials have for years tried to wean Silicon Valley from its dependence on Taiwan, an island democracy roughly the size of Maryland that makes 90 percent of the world’s high-end computer chips.

In secret briefings held in Washington and Silicon Valley, national security officials warned executives from companies like Apple, Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm that China was making plans to retake Taiwan, which Beijing has long considered a breakaway territory. A Chinese blockade of Taiwan, the officials said, could choke the supply of computer chips made on the island and bring the U.S. tech industry to its knees.

Two presidents have tried persuading the industry to change. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. offered financial grants worth billions to improve the domestic production of chips. After that didn’t work, President Trump threatened billions in tariffs to essentially accomplish the same thing.

But warnings, gifts and threats have made little difference. The U.S. tech industry has stubbornly refused to shift where it gets most of its chips, which power things like smartphones, laptops and the giant data centers that run artificial intelligence.

Now, there is increasing concern that inaction by some of Silicon Valley’s most important companies risks destabilizing the global economy. Those worries, drawn into focus by recent live-fire drills conducted by the Chinese military in waters surrounding Taiwan, have prompted dire warnings from White House officials.

“The single biggest threat to the world economy, the single biggest point of single failure, is that 97 percent of the high-end chips are made in Taiwan,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, slightly overstating industry estimates.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Taiwan
KEYWORDS: bigtech; blockade; china; concerntroll; newyorktimes; nyt; seekandtroll; taiwan; tech; thatsonebigif; trippmickle; tsmc

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

It’s not that the chipmeisters have not tried to onshore chipmaking. Giant, multi-billion dollar chip fabs have been built, but they have failed because there is no source of ultrapure water and ultrapure sulfuric acid in the states. Why that is so and why it is apprently incurable, I can not say. Those chemicals/resources are mere blocks or miles away from TSMC in Taiwan, in other words, there is an existing ecosystem in Taiwan. Why we cannot produce those uitems in the US, I have no idea, but this has been the failure point of a couple of giant chip fabs that were fully constructed and never christened in the US.

[ckilmer]

In the last two years china has decapitated the entire senior military leadership of the country due to political infighting by the cpc and the pla

There is no chance that there will be an invasion of Taiwan anytime soon.

[ifinnegan]

Posting more Chicom propaganda.

What else is new.

[ifinnegan]

NYT is crap.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Posting more Chicom propaganda.

Nope. Posting more articles so that the USA and Taiwan can PREPARE for any eventualities.

[ifinnegan]

Tell us more about the “Taiwan Channel” and how you’re not using translation software. 蠢才

[Nateman]

The weak link in our current state of Civilization is semiconductors. They has vastly increased production and promises to deliver even more. The problem is it takes months to make a chip and twice as long to make the factory that makes them. It also costs billions . China could knock us back to a 1970 level of production with an attack on Taiwan.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Tell us more about the “Taiwan Channel” and how you’re not using translation software.

What does this have to do with the article’s content and your accusations of CCP Propaganda?

[SeekAndFind]

RE: 蠢才

I remind you of this rule posted on the front page of FR…

“…. please remember to use common courtesy when posting and refrain from posting personal attacks, profanity, vulgarity, threats, racial or religious bigotry, or any other materials offensive or otherwise inappropriate for a conservative family website.”

You might think that calling someone an idiot in Chinese is acceptable, but it’s not according The the rules.

I am also copying the moderator so that he/she will be aware of what you’re doing.

[Mlheureux]

Unreal. My mother worked at Westinghouse, in early 60’s, in Newbury Park,CA,developing wafers. The US created it and was the top dog, so why not now?

[x]

“Nimble fingers.” Tech firms gave assembly jobs to Asian women here in preference to everyone else. Then they found out that fingers were nimbler (and wages lower) in Asia itself.

[Max_850]

I work at several of the Austin, Tx Semiconductor fabs. One is in the process of offshoring their wafer production to Taiwan and will likely be completed in the next couple years. Then that fab will be sold off or shut down.

I think it is a matter of choosing not to rather than we can’t. Combination of profit margin, liability and environmental regulations. Very toxic chemicals are involved with semiconductor manufacturing. Not sure about Taiwan, but in China I am sure those regulations are not present or very loose.

[libh8er]

NYT is garbage. TSMC has invested $165 Billion on their Fab 21 (aka TSMC Phoenix AZ facility) and outside of Taiwan this is the world’s top AI chip making factory. If Taiwan falls and those factories are destroyed, Fab 21 will keep chugging away.

https://youtu.be/JO9CkKGbDBs?si=Q-QrMRVivAHXEe0l

[Brian Griffin]

We simply shouldn’t be importing:
1. stuff that can be made and packaged by automated equipment
[we should only be importing high comparative advantage products
like sewn garments and other high assembly time consumer products]
2. ferrous products for motor vehicles
[we export few cars - tariffs on automobile grade steel won’t hurt US automakers]
3. aluminum alloys for aircraft
[we need the absolute ability to build warplanes]
4. inputs to make plastic products
[this stuff is made at industrial scale]
5. life-saving drugs and their precursors
[so our sick people can’t be held hostage by anti-American governments]

[Brian Griffin]

The Russians aim to build their own chip industry by 2030.

Chips could be imported from Russia.