Credit cards, washing machines, smartphones: today there is hardly a device without a computer chip. The USA and China are now dueling over this key technology. The story began in Silicon Valley, then a valley of orchards, driven by a group of ambitious men.
One hardly associates Silicon Valley with computer chips anymore, after all two thirds of all chips today come from Taiwan; South Korea and China follow. But it was the United States that invented the tiny silicon circuits that are at the heart of our digitized world today. In fact, it was a handful of men in America’s West. They created the basis for a technological revolution that soon spilled over from America to Asia – and over which major powers are dueling today. If you want to understand the trade war between China and the West over computer chips, you have to go back seventy years to the origins of chip technology in California.