Weekly News Roundup

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TL;DR

We have a short news roundup today with comments on Intel and new US government measures to counter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Belt and Road Initiative.

Intel In Talks To Purchase GlobalFoundries 

Intel is in talks to purchase GlobalFoundries. The move would create major consolidation in the foundry business (source). Here are some analyst thoughts on the purchase.

Dylan Patel @dylan522p

Intel purchasing GlobalFoundries is perfect for IDM 2.0 Existing foundry contracts, foundry expertise in SiPh, usage of materials such as SiN and GaN for optical and wireless communications, FD-SOI. Gives them an inroad with defense in an existing fab!

semianalysis.substack.comGlobalFoundries Is A Leading-Edge Foundry Despite Claims OtherwiseRather than chasing Moore’s Law while ignoring all cost scaling, GlobalFoundries is pushing the bleeding edge of manufacturing in silicon photonics, usage of materials such as SiN and GaN for communications, 3D heterogenous integration, and FD-SOI

Semiconductors Causing Inflation?

Reports suggest that the semiconductor shortage may be worsening worries about inflation.

Dylan Patel @dylan522p

Semiconductor shortage alone is causing nearly 2% of inflation! People often say inflation is going nuts, but most of CPI inflation is due to used car prices, vacation travel boom, and energy prices. Once you remove these, inflation is manageable. Inflation seems very transitory!

Momentum Building for Diplomatic Boycott of Olympics

Adrian Zenz @adrianzenz

British Parliament unanimously passes motion for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics in light of egregious human rights violations.

Luke de Pulford 裴倫德 @lukedepulford

#BREAKING HOUSE OF COMMONS VOTES FOR A *DIPLOMATIC* BOYCOTT OF @Beijing2022 - MOTION PASSES UNANIMOUSLY. Thank you @timloughton and all those organisations who helped to get this done. https://t.co/zdfQSX4cng

US Attempting to Compete with Belt and Road

The US government is attempting new initiatives to compete with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Belt and Road initiative through the International Development Finance Corp (DFC) (source). The bipartisan initiative has $60 billion of funding to fund foreign infrastructure development. I’d argue that for the DFC to be effective, it will need to work closely with American infrastructure companies to help build American expertise in infrastructure development. The PRC has followed a similar strategy to great effect.

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Deep Into the Forest is a newsletter by Deep Forest Sciences, Inc. We’re a deep tech R&D company specializing in the use of AI for deep tech development. We do technical consulting and joint development partnerships with deep tech firms. Get in touch with us at partnerships@deepforestsci.com! We’re always welcome to new ideas!

Credits

Author: Bharath Ramsundar, Ph.D.
Editor: Sandya Subramanian, (Ph.D.)