The Circle of Life

Last week the CHIPS and Science Act was signed and meant to help jumpstart American efforts to supercharge our domestic semiconductor industry and reduce costs of labor while providing jobs to Americans. The answer to what this has to do with security, is everything. Cybersecurity, residential, industrial, national security, the whole shebang. It’s the circle of life.

Not just security either, literally everything. You’d be hard pressed to find any product not tagged as a smart device hungrily devouring chips to feed industries growing at an incredible rate. I’ve personally reported on a handful of financial predictions for the next half decade on various corners of the security industry and smart tech is growing by billions and billions of dollars. Your cars, personal entertainment media devices like televisions and videogame consoles, residential and industrial security like smart cameras, doors, thermostats, a whole suite of electronics for the homestead, even drones. All those things rely on a thriving semiconductor industry. Heck, even your phone is a smart phone, and why even call them phones anymore besides it being the accepted nomenclature? I assure you we millennials rarely use these things to make phone calls; they are Star Trek tricorders.   

But the last few years have taught some hard lessons about what a compromised supply chain does for a company’s logistics planning. You could rightly lay the blame for a sizable amount of the inflation we’re seeing on the huge semiconductor demand failing to be met worldwide because of a global pandemic and rising political instability.

Also, sometimes a boat gets stuck in a canal. Do you remember that? The companies who had goods on the Ever Given cargo ship didn’t forget. You may not have heard that another boat from that company was stuck in Chesapeake Bay a year later. The Ever Forward, of the Taiwan based Evergreen Marine Corp., Yes that Taiwan. The country that serves as the worlds largest source of semiconductors. Which is under constant political dispute and international posturing.

Like I said, it’s all connected in a great big circle of life. The CHIPS and Science act of 2022 won’t be a quick fix to a global problem, but with any luck (and with time) it will be the seed that bears fruit. I hope so at least, or else this great big ship we call Earth is on course to get stuck in the canal.