Small Yet Mighty

In October 2022, the United States Department of Commerce implemented with little warning a set of export control regulations effectively outlawing the export of US semiconductor technology to China. Given China’s reliance on non-Chinese tools, software and facilities in the manufacture of microchips – the silicon semiconductors upon which all information technologies rely – this was potentially a major blow to China’s ambition of global tech dominance. It was also the latest exchange in a decades-long struggle between established and emerging powers for political, economic and military advantage in the field of chip technology.