The Japanese population trend is unsustainable with long term growth. Maybe they will find people to relocate to satisfy the labor needs? They're notoriously anti-immigration. So unless they have a growing labor pool that can sustain this it's going to be hard.

In general, I think the US is looking for alternatives outside of Taiwan to build and operate fabs. Yes, there is a push to get them in the US as well.

I'm unsure of why people in the EU seem disconcerted about this. No one is asking them not to create the programs to setup fabs. In fact the US may be thrilled that more allies are putting effort towards creating a supply chain not dependent on China (and Taiwan).

▲

mitthrowaway2 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

How much human labor is needed to run a semiconductor fab? This isn't exactly a new shipyard being announced. It seems like the perfect investment for an aging society, and might pay dividends in helping to support the automation of other industries.

Japan also already supplies a lot of critical materials for semiconductor fabrication, and has a lot of experience in the sector. They also have a well-developed domestic mechatronics supply chain. It seems like a fairly straightforward thing.

▲

alephnerd 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> I'm unsure of why people in the EU seem disconcerted about this

This is a top-level issue within Europe as well.

When the Biden admin began the IRA, IIJA, and CHIPS ACT, France, Germany, and the entire EU began a massive lobbying campaign that verged into a trade war [0][1][2].

I went to school with a number of people who became senior EU and EU member state civil servants and leaders, and my college always hosted European dignitaries on a daily basis (along with a yearly gala/bash where all the major EU and EU member state dignitaries would attend with students and professors [3]), and what I saw was the best and brightest remained in the US, and those who climbed the ladder the fastest in EU and EU member state governments tended to have some familial background or network they heavily leveraged. Or they lucked out and joined the right student union during the right election cycle. There is a chronic lack of vision, and more critically - a chronic disinterest to take hard decisions, because the incentive structures are completely misaligned, with MPs essentially overriding careerist technocrats all for the sake of electoral needs, and unlike Asia, businesses are kept at arms length aside from those that are quasi-state owned like Volkswagen, EDF, or Leonardo SPA.

It's almost as if the worst aspects of private sector capitalism morphed with the worst aspects of state capitalism into a legalistic quagmire.

[0] - https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/expressions/real-reason...

[1] - https://www.atlantik-bruecke.org/en/schadet-der-us-inflation...

[2] - https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/how-europe-should-answe...

[3] - https://euroconf.eu/

▲

orochimaaru 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Engineering pay in the EU is bad. If that can be rectified then top talent would not move to the US. Also, US companies actively harness senior individual contributors. I don't think traditional EU companies have that.

I think all the talk around regulations, taxes, etc. are a side show. Yes, there could be slightly looser labor laws. But when it comes down to it - money matters and Europe just doesn't pay. The same for Canada. Their universities plodded through AI all through the "AI Winter" and now all their best AI talent works for US companies. There is no single Canadian AI company that's at the level of what their US counterparts are doing.

▲

alephnerd 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> Engineering pay in the EU is bad

Yes, but it is comparable to the pay received in Asia - especially peer developed countries like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

The issues that have lead to laggard innovation in the EU outside of niches like Biopharma are institutional in nature.

> I think all the talk around regulations, taxes, etc. are a side show...

I disagree about this as someone who has first hand experience about this w/ regards to the American semiconductor industry. Having a single window to manage disputes, get answers within days instead of months, and tax subsidizes should decisions not be guaranteed in a timely manner help reduce risk for massive capex investments.

This is what EU member states like Denmark provide for the biopharma industry, and a similar template could have been used for semiconductors. The issue is, the talent density for large swathes of electronics and computer engineering just doesn't exist in the EU anymore.

It can be fixed, but egos need to be set aside and individual European states will have to adopt industrial policy strategies similar to those that developing countries adopted to build their own domestic industries.

	▲	jack_tripper 10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		>Yes, but it is comparable to the pay received in Asia - especially peer developed countries like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Not really. If you're an engineer in Asia you're in the top 5% - 10% of local purchasing power. While if you're an engineer in UK, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, etc you're not that wealthy by local standards, you're just average like most other white collar workers, unless you work for a US FANG. >This is what EU member states like Denmark provide for the biopharma industry Not just Denmark, but bio/pharma is a protected and state sponsored industry in most EU countries, unlike software, electronics and electrical engineering which has been treated as a race to the bottom industry. > The issue is, the talent density for large swathes of electronics and computer engineering just doesn't exist in the EU anymore. "Oh no, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions". This is what you get when for the past 20+ years you outsourced your entire industry to Asia for the sake of shareholder returns with no thought of the future. Munich is still a strong tech hub for electronics with Apple, Rhode & Schwarz and others developing RF and semiconductors there, but it can't hold a candle to the sci-fi work being done in SV or even Israel.