One thing American politicians seem to agree on, despite many other differences, is that the country needs to lead in technology to maintain a position of economic and geopolitical preeminence. How to ensure that leadership will be a crucial question for the next US president and his team.
The last two administrations have taken some extraordinary steps to maintain an edge in chip manufacturing and artificial intelligence, two fields that are inextricably intertwined. The United States and its allies have restricted exports of cutting-edge chips and silicon manufacturing equipment to key geopolitical rivals (i.e. China). In 2022, the United States also passed the CHIPS Act, legislation that will invest $280 billion to bring more microchip manufacturing back to American soil.
Laurie E. LocascioUndersecretary for Standards and Technology at the Department of Commerce and director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, she helps oversee the government’s investments in chips. She tells WIRED that inventing new chip designs and manufacturing techniques is crucial to ensuring America’s technological preeminence in AI. She adds that chip packaging — the process of combining components in new ways to improve performance — may be especially vital to the next wave of AI.
Locascio recently met with WIRED Senior Editor Will Knight at the Commerce Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. The conversation has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
How have generative AI and ChatGPT changed the US government’s microchip priorities?
During the pandemic, we couldn’t get basic chips, the technologies that we rely on for everything. But now the conversation is changing. People realize that we need the most advanced chips. We’re really at the top of our game in AI, and AI is a game-changer for a lot of companies. So now the big thing, the thing on everyone’s mind, is AI chips.
What does this really mean when it comes to the CHIPS Act?
We don’t want to just bring current technology to our shores. We really need to get on with that so we can manufacture the next generation and the next innovations that come out of the labs. We’ve always been really at the forefront of innovation and creativity in this space, and that’s our advantage.
That’s why the CHIPS Act has these two components: the $11 billion for R&D and the $39 billion for manufacturing. They have to work in sync, because it’s really our ability to innovate that’s going to make these manufacturers want to stay here. That’s why we’re developing, in sync with the R&D community, new types of technologies that can be directly incorporated into manufacturing lines.
Faster AI chips are crucial to AI companies’ efforts to create more powerful AI. How does that need influence investment in next-generation manufacturing?
I would say that it has really focused our thinking in certain areas. For example, when we think about how we are going to spend money, $3 billion associated with “advanced packaging,” We’re now thinking about the AI problem. We understand how important packaging can be to that particular set of problems. I would say that it’s really focused some of our thinking in certain areas, both on the manufacturing side and the R&D side.
Why is packaging (i.e. assembling different components) so important?
It may sound like a trivial topic, but packaging enables the development of three-dimensional chip architectures that will really accelerate the power of AI chips and help develop the AI revolution. We just announced a Notice of intent to raise $1.6 billion in financingIt’s really focused on a lot of areas, but the power requirements and thermal requirements associated with AI chips are really important.
