Dossier No. 37, June 26, 2025; this “dossier” is a collection of short articles by the New Anticapitalist Party-Revolutionaries (NPA-R) in France (translated from French)
A very material technology
The existence of AI relies on specific technologies, but also on access to extremely sophisticated computer components. Dominance in the field of AI therefore also depends on mastery of the hardware and materials that make it possible.
How the pie is divided
Microchips, which are essential for computationally intensive AI programs, represent a huge market: $646 billion in revenue in 2024, marked by an international division of labor and extreme concentration at different stages of production. Their design is largely dominated by American giants such as Nvidia, which subcontract production mainly to the Taiwanese foundry TSMC. In 2022, TSMC produced more than half of the world’s chips and more than 90% of the latest generation of chips, far ahead of its European or American counterparts such as STMicroelectronics (STM) or GlobalFoundries. This virtual monopoly in turn depends on the Dutch company ASML, which is the only company capable of manufacturing the high-precision machines needed to engrave components at the millionth of a millimeter scale.
National retreat
Since the shortage that hit the sector during the Covid-19 pandemic, the old imperial powers have been seeking to relocate part of this strategic production. The Biden and then Trump administrations boasted of having secured the establishment of three TSMC factories in Arizona. More significantly, the U.S. executive in 2022 and the European executive in 2023 launched massive subsidy plans for companies in the sector, worth $280 billion and $48 billion respectively. This public money aims to strengthen the position of Western capitalism, but does not improve workers’ living conditions: STM received €500 million in 2024 while announcing 5,000 job cuts.
Jacques Bernard and Dylan Bourrier
