The UAE and India Look to Localize Semiconductor Manufacturing || Peter Zeihan
Oct 24, 2024
auto_awesome
The podcast dives into the semiconductor manufacturing ambitions of the UAE and India. It contrasts the UAE's partnerships with giants like Samsung and TSMC against India's focus on lower-tier chip production. The discussion reveals insights into regional capabilities, infrastructure, and labor dynamics. As both countries pivot towards localizing their industries, intriguing predictions about the future landscape of global semiconductor supply chains emerge.
The UAE's semiconductor manufacturing efforts face challenges due to a lack of local engineering talent and dependence on foreign labor.
India's strategy emphasizes building local capabilities through partnerships to produce more basic semiconductor chips, contrasting with the UAE's reliance on external resources.
Deep dives
Semiconductor Manufacturing Complexity
The establishment of semiconductor fabrication facilities, or fabs, involves intricate processes requiring high-end engineering and advanced mathematical skills. Companies like TSMC and Samsung represent the pinnacle of this industry, but they operate under very different models. TSMC functions as a fabricator within a vast ecosystem of companies that handle design and materials, allowing them to focus on production without engaging deeply in the design process. In contrast, Samsung operates as a conglomerate with its own design capabilities, enabling it to control more of the fabrication process, but both companies are called upon to produce cutting-edge chips that require the highest levels of expertise.
Contrasting Fab Models in UAE and India
The potential for a high-end semiconductor fab in the UAE is met with skepticism due to a lack of local engineering talent and the reliance on imported labor. The UAE's financial infrastructure does not prioritize the high-skill workforce necessary for such a complex operation, suggesting that labor will largely come from foreign workers, particularly from India. In comparison, India's approach to establishing semiconductor manufacturing focuses on functional outputs, with a partnership between PowerChip and Tata aimed at creating a facility capable of producing more basic chips rather than leading-edge technologies. This reflects two distinct strategies for semiconductor production, with the UAE leaning on external resources and India attempting to build local capacities through infrastructure developments.
1.
Exploring Semiconductor Manufacturing: UAE vs. India
This video was originally released on Patreon 1 week ago. If you want to see the videos as soon as they come out, join the Patreon here and help us donate to MedShare: https://bit.ly/medsharepatreon
A couple more countries have joined the campaign trail to buildout their semiconductor industries: the United Arab Emirates and India. Let's break down the different approaches to this buildout and how they might turn out.