A few weeks ago, President Biden was in the Netherlands, where he asked the Dutch government to restrict export from a company called ASML to China. ASML is the only company in the world that makes a specific machine needed to make the most advanced chips. Apple couldn’t make iPhone chips without this one machine from the Netherlands’ biggest company. ASML doesn’t just shape the Dutch economy—it shapes the entire world economy. How did that happen?
Chris Miller, Tufts professor and author of Chip War: The Fight For The World’s Most Critical Technology walked me through a lot of this, along with some deep dives into geopolitics and the absolutely fascinating chip manufacturing process. This one has everything: foreign policy, high powered lasers, hotshot executives, monopolies, the fundamental limits of physics, and, of course, Texas. Here we go.
Links:
US issues sweeping restrictions on chip sales to China
Japan and the Netherlands join US with tough chip controls on China
Pat Gelsinger came back to turn Intel around — here’s how it’s going
Transcript:
https://www.theverge.com/e/23342471
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
It was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Director is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Why the video game industry is such a mess
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan wants AI clones in meetings
Google Zero is here. Now what?
How the FBI built its own smartphone company to hack the criminal underworld
Google's Sundar Pichai on AI-powered search and the future of the web
TikTok's big bet to fight the ban bill
Why Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen is confident we'll all adapt to AI
Why the tech industry can’t crack the smart home
Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath on life after Volvo and weathering the EV slowdown
Understanding the chaos at Tesla
Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius explains why EVs are still the future — but Apple's next-gen CarPlay isn't
Why the TikTok ban won't solve the US's online privacy problems
Discord CEO Jason Citron makes the case for a smaller, more private internet
Disney just fought off a shareholder revolt — but the clock’s still ticking
Dropbox CEO Drew Houston wants you to embrace AI and remote work
The rise and fall of Vice Media
Why Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince is the internet’s unlikely defender
Why Nintendo sued a Switch emulator out of existence
Mailchimp CEO Rania Succar on culture, acquisitions, and how big 'small business' really is
Can you patent a pizza?
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The emPOWERed Half Hour
The Vergecast
Why’d You Push That Button?
Ctrl-Walt-Delete
Re/code Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher
Re/Code Decode