New US chip lobbying group

Chip buyers and manufacturers are joining together to form a new lobbying group to put pressure of the Biden Administration to press for chip manufacturing subsidies.

The Semiconductors in America Coalition includes Apple, Intel, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, and has asked US lawmakers to provide funding for the CHIPS for America Act, for which President Joe Biden has asked Congress to provide $50 billion.

The CHIPS for America Act (Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors) has earmarked billons of dollars in funding to bolster US competitiveness in the Semiconductor space.

According to a letter sent by the group to political leaders in Congress, “Robust funding of the CHIPS Act would help America build the additional capacity necessary to have more resilient supply chains to ensure critical technologies will be there when we need them.”

A growing number of companies have been hit by chip shortages and the automotive industry in the US recently urged the Biden administration to secure chip supplies for car factories by using a national security law to redirect computer chips to automakers. This was, according to Reuters, rejected by the US government on the grounds that doing so could hurt other industries.

The new coalition of companies has itself cautioned the government against actions that could favour a single industry such as automakers.

“Government should refrain from intervening as industry works to correct the current supply-demand imbalance causing the shortage,” the group said.

The US Administration is urging chips users and producers to increase transparency by improving the capacity to forecast demand and provide better information on how chips are moving through supply chains to end users and is set to issue recommendations once it has completed a 100-day review.