00:00Olivia, the stakes in this case seem to be quite high. It involves TSMC and Intel,
00:05the biggest chip makers in Taiwan and the US, and involving the most advanced tech
00:11in the industry. So things are moving very quickly, but when you look at this
00:14case, what's your main takeaway? My main takeaway is that this is such an
00:19interesting case that highlights how technology security is at the absolute
00:23forefront of people's minds right now. Now we've spoken a lot about sort of the
00:27kind of export controls and other levers that you can use to control the access
00:32to the physical hardware and the infrastructure, but the most difficult
00:36thing to control is in fact people. Now this case comes at a very sensitive time
00:40in US-Taiwan relations. The two countries are negotiating a trade deal, which is
00:46reported to involve many aspects related to the semiconductor industry, especially
00:51as the US attempts to bolster its domestic chip capacity. Do you think that cases
00:57like this could create some friction in that relationship? It's probably going
01:01to be a source of friction, no doubt. We have to factor in that TSMC and Intel,
01:07they are partners, but they are also competitors. So TSMC is an absolute
01:13indisputed titan of producing advanced semiconductors at five nanometers and
01:18below. Intel is trying to capture a part of that market, but they have been quite
01:23laggard in their progress in achieving that market share. There's a big question mark
01:28around how long Taiwan and TSMC's silicon shield will hold, right? And the only the
01:35power of that silicon shield is only as good as the exclusivity of the
01:40technology and the IP that TSMC holds as well. You've already seen just this year,
01:47Taiwan use its national security laws to indict three former other former TSMC
01:53employees for leaking trade secrets to a Japanese company, Tokyo Electron, I believe.
01:59And this is probably a sign of things to come. And finally, Olivia, what do you think
02:05that this case and cases like it tell us about the state of global chip competition
02:09at this moment? I think what's really interesting to me is how these commercial
02:15decisions and national security decisions are becoming increasingly fused. We've seen
02:21that trend over the past couple of years already. But now it's really getting down
02:25to brass tacks of not just controlling supply chains, or specific foundries, but
02:32now also specific people and the actions of individual employees within an
02:36organisation. I do wonder where this is going to head. Are we going to be doing a lot of
02:43investigations authorised under departments of commerce into specific entities, specific
02:49senior executives? What does that mean for an overall innovation ecosystem, where
02:54traditionally, some of these players and some of these people do move very freely
02:59between companies? Yes, it is often under the auspices of some sort of non
03:03disclosure or non complete clause. But this is now looking at it from a very, very
03:09specific national security, national interest lens. And I wonder about how many
03:14people are going to be wrapped up in this continuing trend.
Comments