Chips are the key economic and military enablers of the industrial world. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol recently described chip technology leadership as paramount to a country’s economic survival (Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2024). The impact on military matters is overwhelming. As David Goldman and I wrote in the the Wall Street Journal on December 23, 2018: […]

The post America’s priority should be chip design leadership appeared first on Asia Times.

The automotive industry is in a most difficult period of its history. How can it predict the future? Technological marvels enabled by digital electronics have periodically emerged as new consumer products and services. And what is most remarkable is how quickly they have become accepted as necessities. Consider in the past few decades color television, […]

The post Are EVs the future or merely a niche market? appeared first on Asia Times.

The semiconductor industry was invented and developed in the United States, yet most of the highest-performance chips are now produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), with more than US$70 billion of annual revenues solely from chip manufacturing of devices designed by others. Such devices are key enablers of all high-performance electronic systems. Faced with […]

The post The challenge of reviving US chip industry appeared first on Asia Times.

The feasibility of autonomous vehicles for general use in public traffic has long been questioned (see “Artificial intelligence faces serious roadblocks,” Asia Times, July 18, 2017). Here we are, years later – after billions of dollars of investment – with the reality that the technology still does not meet the requirements for reliable use in general […]

The post Is there a basic problem with autonomous driving? appeared first on Asia Times.

The recent award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman has been noted with great press attention to the fact that the pair met many doubts in the course of their research and that their successful collaboration started in a chance meeting in a copy room. Not on […]

The post Individual creativity solves the impossible appeared first on Asia Times.

Job loss caused by new technology is a constant in the history of industrial development. Innovations make obsolete some industrial activities while creating new ones – creating winners and losers. Such changes are unpopular among those affected. Some examples of resistance were violent. A famous example is the resistance to new textile technology in Great […]

The post AI will continue to create smarter robots appeared first on Asia Times.

Recent decades have witnessed extraordinary economic progress owing to enormous innovations in technologies. Well known is the important role of private venture capital in financing early-stage companies that grew into many of giant corporations that dominate many new industries. Less well known is the role of the much larger private equity funds that finance the […]

The post Private equity drives industrial efficiency appeared first on Asia Times.

Important new technology industries that originated in the US are now overseas.  As a result of the manufacturing migration, the US trade balance for technology products shifted, after the year 2000, from a US surplus to a growing deficit. US dependence on foreign sources for strategic products has raised concerns both based on national security […]

The post When US national investments succeed and fail appeared first on Asia Times.

Manufacturing has been a declining activity in the US for decades. As a result, the country has become largely dependent on foreign sources for many critical technology products that underlie industrial and military systems.  Semiconductors (chips) are among these key products. During this period of decline, US domestic production of semiconductors has dropped to less than 10% […]

The post Rebuilding US chip industry won’t be cheap appeared first on Asia Times.

Google is now undergoing the governmental grief reserved for companies deemed monopolies and potential threats to orderly and fair commerce. The US Department of Justice on January 24 sued Google “for monopolizing multiple digital advertising technology products in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.” As I reflected on this development, I reminded myself […]

The post Monopolies based on technology don’t last appeared first on Asia Times.

We have seen significant fraud stories recently, ranging from ventures offering imaginary blood-testing equipment to electric trucks that never existed. But the current Bitcoin meltdown is different. An event with some similar characterictics comes to mind: the Amsterdam tulip mania of 1634 to 1637 that is generally believed to be the first recorded event of this kind and which became […]

The post Of tulip and crypto mania appeared first on Asia Times.

Technology leaders have been fighting intellectual-property theft for centuries. History shows that a static defense has never worked for long. Sustained leadership depends on innovation, not barriers. The United States is now engaged in an unprecedented effort to deny semiconductor technology to China. Maintaining US leadership depends more on US innovation than on technology controls.  […]

The post How (and how not) to protect intellectual property appeared first on Asia Times.

Big industrial problems attract entrepreneurs with big ideas and investors with a high risk appetite. Starting with good intentions, some end up as disastrous frauds as promised products prove to be unachievable. How does this happen? Such situations are rare but some entrepreneurs end up misleading themselves and investors in the mistaken belief that obstacles will be overcome with […]

The post Solutions to big problems – dreams, reality, and fraud appeared first on Asia Times.

A recent op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, “Higher Ed Can Redisdcover its Purpose,” critiques US colleges’ shortcomings in training students for market needs, saying they ” will need to become intentional about the education they are providing and about the students for whom they are providing.” In this regard there is much to […]

The post How the ‘startup nation’ develops its workforce appeared first on Asia Times.

The recent disruptions in international product flow are prompting a serious discussion about increasing US domestic manufacturing to improve the reliability of the supply chain. How likely is it that a significant increase can occur in the foreseeable future? What is the future of US manufacturing? Manufacturing continues to move offshore. Since 2000 alone, US […]

The post Winners and losers in the global supply chain appeared first on Asia Times.

The Electron Devices Society of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is celebrating during 2022-23 the 75th anniversary of the transistor, one of the most important inventions in history. We would not be living in the world we know, and take for granted, without the transistor. Along with the heterojunction semiconductor laser, developed […]

The post Celebrating 75 years of the transistor, which changed the world appeared first on Asia Times.

The US trade deficit in manufactured products has been growing for many years as production moved out of the country. In the 2009 period, the 12-month moving average of the monthly deficit was about US$40 billion.

It has increased markedly during the past several years. In October 2021, that average reached about $90 billion – a sharp 50% increase from about $60 billion in February 2020.

The post How to reduce the US manufacturing trade deficit appeared first on Asia Times.

Quantum computers as conceived are radically different from the familiar digital machines in use today. They operate by leveraging  unique phenomena in quantum physics of materials (based on the behavior of sub-atomic particles) to enable computations to be performed that can enable the rapid solution of certain problems in minutes that could take years with conventional high-performance computers. […]

The post The threat of quantum computing to security infrastructure appeared first on Asia Times.

The United States has lost two industries of critical strategic importance: semiconductors and communications-infrastructure equipment. Only about 9% of the world’s semiconductor devices are currently produced in the US and no significant telecom-equipment manufacturers remain in that country.  Different reasons are responsible for these losses, but government support will be required in both cases if the United States is to keep its […]

The post Strategic industries need government support appeared first on Asia Times.

The wireless communications service industry has only four major equipment suppliers, of which Huawei in China and Ericsson in Sweden are the largest ones. None offer interchangeable products.  This is not a happy situation for customers who are locked in by their chosen equipment provider. It is to be expected that the industry would seek […]

The post O-RAN still not a challenge for Huawei or Ericsson appeared first on Asia Times.