it wants to be self—sufficient when it comes to semiconductors. it's not quite a high—tech superpower yet, and us controls are causing problems. translation: in order- to maintain tech hegemony, the united states has misused export control measures to maliciously block and suppress chinese businesses. this practice deviates from the principle of fair competition and violates international economic and trade rules. now the us is investing billions of dollars to expand the production of chips on american shores. the legislation that allows for that is called the us chips and science act. one of the companies taking advantage of it is micron. it's one of the biggest players in the memory chips business. memory chips are essential for anything that has a processor, but also for bigger items like supercomputers. i sat down with the chief executive of micron, and started by asking him how that legislation will affect his business.

well, the us chips act is helping level the playing field. over the course of the last couple of decades, a lot of the manufacturing of silicon moved to asia because of the incentives provided by the governments here, and now us chips act is able to bridge the cost gap that exists in production in the us versus asia. so us chips act will provide the necessary grants and the investment tax credits to enable more manufacturing in the us. yeah, i'm glad you mentioned cost, because there's a reason that the supply chains move to asia in the first place, isn't there? are you confident that the us can be the dominant manufacturer? well, the supply chains for memory manufacturing will be diversified. of course, micron has a well—diversified footprint of manufacturing here in asia, and micron will continue to invest in ourfabs in asia to meet the demand needs of the future. but also in order to meet

the growth in demand, we need to add new capacity. so us new manufacturing fabs that we'll be building in boise, idaho as well as near syracuse in new york, will be part of our overall global footprint, including fabs in the us as well as in asia, to supply the demand that is needed for the 2030 era demand. what are you telling your customers and your clients and your suppliers in this region, then, as the us ramps up its manufacturing? yeah, so micron investments in boise, idaho, when we announced that investment for manufacturing fab, we said we'll be investing $15 billion over the course of ten years. similarly for clay, new york, near syracuse, we have announced that we'll be investing $20 billion over a course of ten years to build a leading—edge memory manufacturing fab there. last year, we announced that micron will be investing $150 billion through the course of the decade

for leading—edge r&d and manufacturing worldwide. so you can see that majority of the investments will, of course, be occurring in our supply chain, wafer manufacturing and assembly and test manufacturing infrastructure that we have here in asia. so all of this is going to coexist. micron will continue to, of course, make investments in our asia manufacturing operations, wafer fab, as well as assembly and test, as well as continue to advance our r&d teams here in asia as we continue to bring up manufacturing in us to meet the second half of this decade demand. is the us right to be so concerned about china's progress on advanced semiconductors? well, ithink, you know, i'm not going to be commenting specifically on us policies because that is really a matter for the governments to decide. what is important is that there be

a level playing field across the globe in terms of ability to do free business, address the markets freely, and of course, factors such as ip protection as well. but the government has put its onus on manufacturers like yourself. what i will tell you is what micron is focused on, what we are focused on is continuing to maintain our technology, leadership, continuing to focus on strengthening, accelerating momentum in products, manufacturing excellence. if you look at micron today, we are focused on gaining our strength in the markets through these aspects of technology, manufacturing and product portfolio and deep customer engagements. and this is what has really positioned micron over the years in terms of industry—leading technologies that we produce. right here in singapore, micron produces the world's most advanced 232 layer nand. so as we navigate through these

changing times on the global front, of course we don't lose sight of what we need to do to maintain our technology, leadership and manufacturing excellence and strong products that meet the requirements of our customers. yeah, i mean, we're living in unique economic times, aren't we? there's rising inflation, there's rising interest rates, there's the war in ukraine, geopolitical tensions. how far does the us—china trade war affect micron�*s business? so, with respect to some of the factors that you mentioned, the russia—ukraine war, the covid lockdowns in china, of course, the high inflation impacting consumer demand for electronics goods, and certainly the macroeconomic environment that is resulting in some cautionary sentiment on part of the businesses to buy products, all of these trends have certainly led to a change in the demand expectations for memory.

and today, as you know, customers during the covid period had supply chain shortages, they had semiconductor shortages, and they scrambled to get supply of semiconductors, and they built high levels of inventory. these are some of the factors impacting the demand to micron and to other memory suppliers today as well. and inventory adjustments are happening at our customers. the ordinary person doesn't get much insight into how something like the war in ukraine affects a semiconductor business. could you elaborate on that? well, you know, the war in ukraine certainly weakened the sentiment around electronics—buying, and resulted in some of the demand reduction. of course, you know, consumers, when they have to worry about energy, food, and of course, post—covid, some of the travel aspects, basically reallocation of consumer spend away from electronics toward

food, energy and otherfactors. so these are some of the factors that have impacted some of the consumer demand. as a memory chip—maker, you really have a first—hand pulse of the entire industry and the demand for consumer products. you've mentioned it already. what's your sense of the current economic conditions for the next year? our memory industry currently is experiencing inventory adjustments by our customers in various end markets, and that has resulted in a reduction in demand to the suppliers of memories. we have taken decisive actions in terms of reducing our capex, in terms of reducing the supply growth, as well as increasing underutilisation in the current fabs. these actions over time will help us to bring supply and demand in balance. so yes, the near term is challenged by the inventory adjustments, but we have confidence in the longer—term demand drivers

are very much intact, and i'm confident that we will emerge stronger at the other end of the current downturn. that's the outlook from one of the biggest brands in the game. now companies are having to contend with a slowdown in the chip sector. plus, recent us export controls are disrupting the industry globally. translation: countries should stand up and not let _ washington's unilateralism and protectionism go unchecked. this concerns the stability of the global trade system and, more importantly, international justice. in october, the us introduced wide—ranging controls requiring licenses for companies that export certain chips using us tools and software, no matter where they're made in the world. the controls also stop us companies from exporting goods and services to china for the manufacture of chips of a certain sophistication.

now it's impossible to produce the smallest, most advanced chips at scale without specialist equipment. china relies on international suppliers for that kit. washington's measures already stop american companies from supplying those machines to china. a dutch company called asml has a monopoly on the most advanced lithographic machines. japan also manufactures a lot of cutting—edge chip—making machines. the us is now asking both countries to restrict sales of these machines to china. washington's rules also target american citizens and green card holders working for certain chinese chip companies. that will effectively cut—off a key pipeline of american talent to china, and further isolate the world's second largest economy from the global semiconductor ecosystem. even this camera i'm talking to you through uses chips. how small will they be in the future? how much power will they have,

and where in the world will they be made? well, to discuss this and more, i'm joined by chris miller, assistant professor of international history at the fletcher school of law and diplomacy at tufts university. he's also the author of chip wars: the fight for the world's most critical technology. linghao bao is a tech analyst at policy research firm trivium, china. hejoins me from shanghai. thank you both for speaking to the bbc. chris, if i can start with you. the us concerns about china advancing in chip technology, are they justified? well, there's no doubt that chinese firms have been making real strides in the past decade, especially in the sphere of chip design capabilities. and what you find historically is that whenever powerful countries have advanced computing technologies, they deploy them to intelligence and to military systems. so i think the us is not wrong to infer that as china makes more

advances in chips and more advances in computing, it will try to apply