Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have called on congressional leaders to accelerate the passage of the Bipartisan Innovation Act to support and strengthen domestic chip manufacturing and counter competition from China.
The two secretaries urged lawmakers to fully fund the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors in America Act or the CHIPS Act to reduce dependence on foreign-made chips, create jobs, boost domestic supply and free up billions of dollars for private investment.
“If these funds are not appropriated in the coming weeks, the United States will miss out on the current wave of semiconductor investment. Chip producers must make capital expenditure decisions now to meet the enormous increased demand,” Raimondo and Austin, a 2022 Wash100 Award, wrote in a Wednesday letter to House and Senate leaders.
Failure to act will prompt those manufacturers to expand in countries that are offering incentives, they added. Austin and Raimondo called semiconductor production an imperative for national security.
“Funding the CHIPS Act is critical to our national defense. Weapon systems employed on the battlefields of today and emerging technologies of tomorrow depend on our access to a steady, secure supply of microelectronics,” they wrote.
