Biden gets Tech Bill funded

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#USA, August 21, 2022 – A new US Technology Bill is opening the door for more direct competition between the US and China in terms of chip making and research and blocking potential new investments for China for at least a decade.

The Chips and Science Act will fund nearly $300 billion worth of tech based research and manufacturing in the US and was announced by President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday to an audience of technocrats and other stakeholders.

The vast majority of the funding goes to the department of energy for biological and environmental research scientific computing fusion and biological threat preparedness

But the big focus is the cumulative $59 billion allocated to chipmakers and researchers. The semiconductors that these manufacturers produce are used in everything from remotes to high-powered computers, MRI machines, cars and high-powered war machines and China currently holds the lion’s share of the industry.

To combat that dominance, $39 billion will go towards manufacturing and $11 billion towards research. Millions more will go towards education and security.

The Biden Administration’s act has a supply chain security clause and would require recipients of this financing to join an agreement prohibiting them from expanding their manufacturing to China and ‘other areas of concern’. The bill says, “The restrictions would apply for ten years after the receipt of financial assistance, ensuring that semiconductor manufacturers focus their next cycle of investment in the United States and in partner nations.”

The White House has not said which companies, if any have signed on to the deal, however it comes at a tense time for US-China relations as the two countries grapple over the recent Taiwan visit by Nancy Pelosi, US Speaker of the House.