The Chip Wars: The Tiny Machines Behind Global Power (Who Really Runs the World? Book 4)

The most important battlefield in modern geopolitics can fit on a fingertip. Semiconductors run smartphones, banks, hospitals, cars, weapons and artificial intelligence. Yet no country can easily make the most advanced chips alone. In The Chip Wars, JD Arden traces the hidden network behind modern computing, from the invention of the transistor to the immaculate fabrication plants of Taiwan and the escalating technology rivalry between the United States and China. Along the way, he reveals how American software, European machinery, Asian manufacturing, rare materials and hard-won expertise combine to produce objects smaller than a fingernail. Accessible, historically grounded and sharply observed, this is the story of how a microscopic invention became a matter of national security, why governments are spending billions to bring production home, and whether technological sovereignty is possible in an industry built on interdependence.