America’s Foundry: Restoring American Technology Manufacturing Leadership

Executive Summary 

Nothing else matters if Intel Foundry fails. The United States will never regain its footing in leading-edge semiconductor fabrication. Paramount to national security, the United States must fortify a domestic, American-led foundry, with process technology development and high-volume manufacturing.  

TSMC’s and Samsung’s chip production on American soil should be celebrated, but it is temporary relief. It has created a false sense of security. Leading edge process technology development must also occur on American soil if we truly want to restore American technology manufacturing leadership. That reality is quickly evaporating as we allow Intel Foundry assets to fail. 

Why? 

TSMC process technology is developed in Taiwan; Samsung in Korea. Not in America. 

Semiconductor Sovereignty Starts in America 

Technology leadership and semiconductor sovereignty requires two critical components, (1) leading edge process technology development and (2) high-volume manufacturing capacity. After decades of offshoring, today, only one United States-based foundry, Intel Foundry, has a shot to sustain participation in the race for next‑generation node development. As detailed by Chris Miller in Chip War, America sacrificed process leadership for external cost efficiency. 

Meanwhile, multi-tiered and multi-cultural innovation hubs like TSMC have risen to global leadership while anchoring robust ecosystems across design, fabrication, packaging, and supply chain. In short, Taiwan spent the last few decades amassing what Howard Yu (Inc.com) aptly describes as “quiet power”: TSMC’s near-zero visibility dominance by serving top-tier clients including Apple and Nvidia. TSMC’s leap into the trillion-dollar club signals more than dominance of operational scale—it cements Taiwan as the fortress of innovation. 

Process Innovation Pulls the Ecosystem 

Location, location, location. Domicile of chip process technology development dictates the location of talent, suppliers and startups. TSMC’s massive ecosystem emerged from Taiwan’s control and design of the node roadmap. Intel, and correspondingly, America’s semiconductor ecosystem now pays the price of having siloed its innovation. 

If the United States cedes any more of its position in process technology development and volume manufacturing, our economy and national security effectively depend on foreign sovereigns and their technological innovation ecosystems. 

Nationwide Risk = Strategic Weakness 

The United States now waltzes with a generational risk of global scale. America’s chip dependence now extends to its strategic industries. Geopolitical disruption threatens access to Taiwanese or South Korean fabs, a severing of access to sovereign platforms for AI, biotech, space systems, and military infrastructure. 

Salvaging Intel’s next-node (14A and beyond) development is a national security priority. If United States-based process innovation cannot scale, we lose. Period. 

Workforce Reimagined: High-Skill, High-Wage Careers 

Intel and other bellwether companies are laying off our most critical AI infrastructure. Tenured, highly skilled and experienced human capital, aka people. Foundry operations require technical talent—precision technicians, systems integration specialists, fabrication experts, and tool engineers. Reestablishing integrity, dignity and scaled collaboration is essential to position the United States for a successful outcome in a race it cannot afford to lose. 

We must not forsake what we have at hand, and we must focus on “quick wins”. 

Strategic Imperatives 

 Conclusion 

The United States must sustain a fully integrated, American-led, domestic, leading-edge foundry to secure technological sovereignty. If we rely on foreign companies to secure our digital future, we fall. 

This is neither a commercial strategy nor a political debate—it is a national security imperative. Let’s treat it as such.