It’s in Washington’s best interests that American tech giants use Intel for their chip supply.
Are Intel’s foundries up to date?
Yes, but they are behind TSMC. Intel even signed a “partnership” with TSMC for their own latest 3 nm chip production.
The issue for TSMC is that their geopolitical situation is becoming too hot for some countries to handle during this latest push for protectionism. They are moving to create new foundries outside Taiwan, but it’s slow, and they can’t find enough qualified people.
It’s also the same reason that car and aerospace companies get bailed out: Being able to produce semiconductors is as important to our war machine as building vehicles and airplanes.
Yes, because we want our iPhones and Graphics cards to melt down and fail en masse