Trump has the US Chips Act and AI regulations on his back
The authority responsible for the US chip law and AI regulations will be drastically downsized. Indirectly, this means that subsidies will be discontinued.
(Image: c't)
US President Donald Trump apparently wants to take action against the US Chips Act. According to three independent reports, around 500 redundancies are planned at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). They will primarily affect employees who deal with the US Chips Act and regulations relating to artificial intelligence (AI).
This was first reported by Axios and then by Bloomberg and Semiwiki. According to these reports, NIST employees have already been informed of the impending redundancies. The team responsible for determining and disbursing funding for the construction of new semiconductor plants will shrink by 57%; the team responsible for research investments by 67%.
Trump obviously can no longer undo the Chip Act. However, by reducing the number of people responsible, he is potentially paralyzing subsidies. The fewer employees who can take care of the subsidies, the longer the processes will take.
Stick instead of carrot
Trump has already disparaged both the US Chips Act and regulations relating to AI. US companies, most notably hyperscalers Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta, Amazon and Google, should be able to experiment openly with AI – with little regard for potentially negative consequences.
The US Chips Act was passed by previous President Joe Biden in 2022 and provides, among other things, 39 billion US dollars in subsidies for new semiconductor plants and 11 billion US dollars for chip research. He intended to help US chip manufacturing to new heights.
Trump ignores the fact that state subsidies for chip manufacturers are common worldwide, including in Asia and Europe. He sees such subsidies as wasted money. Instead, he wants to force manufacturers to build in the USA by imposing tariffs.
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Many billions already pledged
Intel has so far been the biggest beneficiary of the US Chips Act. The former US government promised Intel a total of 7.9 billion US dollars from the pot. The company received the first 1.1 billion of this at the end of 2024; a further 1.1 billion is to flow in the first quarter of 2025.
TSMC is actually set to receive up to USD 6.6 billion for its semiconductor plants in Arizona and Samsung just under USD 4.8 billion for its plants in Texas. Texas Instruments (TI) has been promised 1.6 billion US dollars.
(mma)
