The global battle over microchips | DW Documentary

Computers, cars, mobile phones, toasters: countless everyday objects contain microchips. They’re tiny, unremarkable and cheap, but since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, they’ve been at the center of a political and industrial tug of war. Against the backdrop of the trade war between China and the US, “The Microchip War“ spotlights all the aspects of this conflict. In the film, the world’s most influential actors in this industrial sector weigh in. No one is in any doubt that microprocessors are as strategically important as oil. The battle over microchips could potentially redefine the geopolitical world order. In the United States and Europe, fears over a microprocessor shortage have led to a flood of investment pledges. After ceding microchip production to Asia in the 1990s, market leaders in the West are now trying to bring production back home and thereby regain control of the production chain. This resulted in the adoption of new legislation in 2022: the European