Geopolitics
Why chips are the new geopolitics
AI capability now runs through one island — and everyone knows it.
Jun 10, 20261 min readsemiconductors · ai · taiwan · supply-chain
The concentration problem
TSMC, in Taiwan, produces around 92% of the world's most advanced logic chips — the silicon behind AI servers, data centers, PCs, and smartphones. That single point in the supply chain is now a strategic vulnerability.
Chips as leverage
Semiconductors have become an instrument of statecraft: U.S. export controls, Section 301 tariffs, a push to bring fab capacity onshore (TSMC in Arizona), and Taiwan weighing export bans on advanced AI chips.
What it means for AI
You can't separate AI capability from geography and industrial policy anymore. Compute is the constraint, and compute is political.
Sources: U.S. Air University JIPA; RaiseSummit; Law as Science.
Filed under:semiconductorsaitaiwansupply-chain