Home Taiwan’s economy feels heat as TSMC feeds global chip boom
Taiwan’s economy feels heat as TSMC feeds global chip boom
Demand for ‘strategic resource’ fuels labour, power and water shortages
World Economy News
16 Feb 2021 • 7 min read
Business has never been brisker for construction companies in Taiwan as the world’s biggest contract chipmaker rushes to build facilities through the Lunar New Year holiday to meet surging demand.
Cranes, trucks, excavators and all manner of heavy vehicles stream in and out of the vast construction site for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s new factory in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan. The site will be the world’s most advanced 3-nanometer chip production plant and is due to begin mass production in the second half of 2022.
America is at risk of losing its strategic advantage in technological innovation. One warning sign is in semiconductors, the silicon chips in everything from cell phones to satellites to jet planes. Recently, the hedge fund Third Point warned that US semiconductor giant Intel, the only US-based company that both designs and manufactures leading-edge logic chips domestically, was in trouble. The Biden administration faces a test: Can it craft an industrial policy as part of our competitive response to China?
While Intel has made some moves in recent days, policymakers and business leaders need to forge a sound industrial policy with a âbuy Americanâ standard and incentives to keep the manufacturing and innovation of critical goods like semiconductors on shore. The goal of this policy should not be ending trade, but building resilience in strategic sectors.
INDIA New England News
Harvard Kennedy School Associate Professor Maya Sen discusses her research into the political leanings of lawyers and argues why it is perfectly normal for attorneys hired by special counsel Robert Mueller to have donated to Democrats. She is pictured outside of HKS at Harvard University. Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer
By Alvin Powell and Colleen Walsh
Harvard Staff Writers/The Harvard Gazette
Pesident Joe Biden on Wednesday issued a call for national unity, devoting much of his inaugural address not to the policies and programs to come, but to the “uncivil war” that Americans must put behind them to tackle their myriad national challenges.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday issued a call for national unity, devoting much of his inaugural address not to the policies and programs to come, but to the “uncivil war” that Americans must put behind them to tackle their myriad national challenges.
The Inauguration of Biden as the 46th president and of Kamala Harris as the first woman, African American, and Asian American vice president took place before a sparse, masked crowd and amid heavy security, both vivid reminders of two major challenges ahead: the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed 400,000 Americans, and angry opposition across the land, reflected in the storming of the Capitol just two weeks earlier.
EXPARTUS MBA Admissions Consulting%%www.expartus.com%%
The coronavirus pandemic isn’t over, but it’s fast becoming part of the curriculum at top business schools.
Schools like University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Stanford Graduate School of Business were among the first to introduce courses focused on COVID-19’s impact when the pandemic hit the US in early 2020.
At that time, Wharton launched a course on business leadership during epidemics and natural disasters while Stanford debuted no less than three separate courses dealing with the pandemic from different angles.
Now, as students head into a new semester, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal highlights how top MBA programs are increasingly introducing courses and case studies looking at business decisions during the pandemic.