Good news everyone, more US manufactured microchips are on the way… eventually. The United States’ Congress has passed the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (Or CHIPS) and Science Act. President Biden plans to sign it into law on August 9th. It’s a big step for American semiconductor manufacturing and to encourage more research into advanced technology fields. So what does this bill actually do and how will it help us? And what does it have to do with gaming?
The CHIPS and Science Act does a few things. The most obvious and direct impact it has on gaming is $52 billion in incentives for companies to produce semiconductors in the USA; or to put it another way, make more chips so we can make consoles and PC components faster. Chip shortages have been the biggest reason why the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S have been hard to come by. It’s even impacting Nintendo Switch production now. There won’t be any immediate relief on these issues, but maybe in the future we will have an overabundance of semiconductors rather than a shortage.
The CHIPS and Science Act also includes money to research advanced computing technology. This is for things like quantum computing, new and advanced microcomputer systems, AI, and more. These technologies are a large part of the future of electronics and computing and it’s important that we are part of developing that future. This bill ensures that research gets funded.
The future is still a long way off but this bill represents a renewed effort for the USA to get back into the driver seat for chip manufacturing and technology research. How it plays out in the long run and what it really means won’t be revealed for years, but there’s a lot of reason for optimism.
Image from: screenhacker.com
