THE global shortage of semiconductor chips could soon be a thing of the past as manufacturers try to overcome supply-chain bottlenecks and restore global trade.
Intel Corporation chief executive Pat Gelsinger said the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer would soon be ramping up its capacity to ensure global demand is met.
“We will now be building a resilient global supply chain for something that is more important to our future than where the oil reserves are: the chips. That is becoming more to humanity and every aspect of digitisation of everything,” Gelsinger said.
“We announced multiple new firms last year. I am looking forward to announcing our next mega site in the US very shortly, and doing so in Europe very shortly. It’s that important to the future of the industry and to the economy.”
Gelsinger was speaking at the World Economic Forum virtual Davos Agenda 2022 on Thursday during a session to discuss the international changes needed to ensure the resilience of global supply chains and to rebuild support for trade.
The Covid-19 pandemic has seen the world suffering from a global semiconductor chip shortage. The chips are critical components in the automotive, computer and other digital-related industries.
The global semiconductor industry is dominated by companies from the US, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and the Netherlands.
US trade representative Katherine Tai emphasised the need to build supply chains that were better and more resilient after the pandemic.
“I think that it is time for us to acknowledge that our goal really shouldn’t be to try to go back to the way the world was, say, in 2019,” Tai said.
“But we have to take lessons, very hard lessons that we have experienced over the past two years, and take this opportunity to build toward something that is different.”
The World Trade Organisation called on multilateral organisations and world governments to help digitise customs procedures and remove red tape.
WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the global supply-chain disruption was an opportunity to “reglobalise” to solve the world’s inequality problems.
“This is a chance for us, in this diversification and going global, to integrate those countries and areas and parts of the world that have been left behind in the benefits of globalisation,” she said.
‘We see shits to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia, and I call it a way of reglobalising and using this globalisation and supply chain to solve some of the inequality problems.”
BUSINESS REPORT ONLINE