How an Artificial Intelligence chip war could destroy the global economy

What Donald duck Trump has been doing in the past weeks can trigger another cold war, in more than one fields than just weapons. Weapons are of course involved, but subjects like economic and chips may also be involved. For the moment you can join the Big Think team and their sister channel Free Think in this episode of The Freethink Interview, a interview series for thought-provoking conversations with some of the world’s most interesting and ambitious technologists. What if the world's most critical technology isn't software, but the tiny pieces of silicon that power it, and what if this chips will be used in just a possible cold war? In an age where chips and the computer they are controlling are everywhere, from smartphones to coffee makers, their manufacturing complexity might surprise you. It's harder to make a modern semiconductor than a nuclear weapon since the semiconducters have been changing a lot in the last decades while then nuclear weapons hardly changed in the last six decades.

Inside Taiwan's cutting-edge fabrication plants, machines worth $350 million each orchestrate an atomic ballet. These marvels of engineering use the flattest mirrors ever made and lasers that create temperatures 40 times hotter than the sun's surface – all to carve transistors smaller than a coronavirus. Something cool enough to find out more about their operation if any information is available, reading them on computers controlled by their chips.

From Silicon Valley to Taiwan, from the Netherlands to Japan, making modern chips is a global dance of unprecedented complexity. Each processor requires ultra-purified materials, billion-dollar machines, and a supply chain spanning multiple continents. But this intricate network faces its greatest challenge yet.

As Artificial Intelligence reshapes more and more our world with their results and the money invested in them, the demand for advanced chips is skyrocketing. Tech giants are pouring billions into new semiconductor designs, while startups race to create specialized Artificial Intelligence chips that could make artificial intelligence as accessible as a Google search. Join us as we explore how these tiny silicon marvels are shaping humanity's future.

The video chapters are following:

• 00:00: The Freethink Interview: Chris Miller
• 00:39: A single factory in Taiwan
• 02:31: The first transistor
• 03:31: The first chip
• 04:50: Moore’s Law
• 07:40: A global industry
• 10:01: The most important company in the world
• 12:08: Why chips are central to US and China
• 13:45: AI and chips