AI, Semiconductors and the New Geopolitics of Advanced Technology

Artificial intelligence is driving extraordinary demand for advanced semiconductors, AI infrastructure and data-center capacity, while the semiconductor industry has not expanded quickly enough to meet that demand. As the U.S. and China compete for leadership in AI, control of advanced chips, semiconductor supply chains and data centers is becoming increasingly important to technological advantage and national power. In this episode of the S4GEO Podcast, S4GEO Board Chair Rodger Baker speaks with semiconductor and technology veterans Michael Hochberg and Marcus Gomez about the geopolitics of AI, U.S.-China competition, TSMC and Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem, AI infrastructure and the constraints shaping the global AI race. All of this is giving AI infrastructure new strategic significance. Data centers are becoming important enough to national power that they can be viewed as wartime infrastructure and potential military targets. As Marcus Gomez puts it: “One of the things to pay attention to is which countries and which nation states decide to prioritize compute as a strategic resource.... I think the people who hoard compute are probably going to have a material advantage. I mean, look, they’re bombing data centers already.” Michael Hochberg is President and Founder of Periplous and a physicist, entrepreneur and semiconductor industry executive. He has co-founded five semiconductor companies, including Luxtera and Elenion, and previously served as CTO of Optical Subsystems at Nokia. Marcus Gomez is a technology entrepreneur, co-founder and former CEO of Luminous Computing, and advisor to large venture-capital funds. His current project is in stealth. His work spans artificial intelligence, AI hardware, computing infrastructure and semiconductor technology.