It’s not just money but also expertise required to build, run, and maintain the fabs, which are each different specialized skills (or more accurately an umbrella of different specialized skills). While these people certainly exist, I don’t think there’s a large pool of them waiting to get hired. And with memory production being so concentrated in Taiwan and South Korea, it will be difficult to poach workers because (as I understand) both cultures are big on loyalty to the nation.
That’s not to say I disagree that anyone else should try to get into the memory fab game (or chip fab in general) as I think the market needs more players, but it’s easier said than done, even if you have a ton of money to throw at the problem. Look at Intel, they struggled on the fab side and already had fabs going as a leading chip producer. Or AMD, who sold their fabs because they were struggling to keep them profitable.
Though I also think that governments would be smart to subsidize (or outright socialize) chip fabs, as depending on others to make these is giving up on a lot of economic power (which can affect military power, so spreading chip production out more could increase world stability).
Modern fabs would need to be a national project. They’re too resource intense for private businesses. Business can’t finance 2 parallel $50billion projects; nations could though.
It’s not just money but also expertise required to build, run, and maintain the fabs, which are each different specialized skills (or more accurately an umbrella of different specialized skills). While these people certainly exist, I don’t think there’s a large pool of them waiting to get hired. And with memory production being so concentrated in Taiwan and South Korea, it will be difficult to poach workers because (as I understand) both cultures are big on loyalty to the nation.
That’s not to say I disagree that anyone else should try to get into the memory fab game (or chip fab in general) as I think the market needs more players, but it’s easier said than done, even if you have a ton of money to throw at the problem. Look at Intel, they struggled on the fab side and already had fabs going as a leading chip producer. Or AMD, who sold their fabs because they were struggling to keep them profitable.
Though I also think that governments would be smart to subsidize (or outright socialize) chip fabs, as depending on others to make these is giving up on a lot of economic power (which can affect military power, so spreading chip production out more could increase world stability).
Modern fabs would need to be a national project. They’re too resource intense for private businesses. Business can’t finance 2 parallel $50billion projects; nations could though.