Washington, D.C. – As demand for semiconductors increases, a coalition of nine tech trade associations continue to press President Biden to take urgent action to spur U.S. chip manufacturing and research and development, and refrain from advancing any policy that picks winners or losers among industries when addressing the current shortage.

Semiconductors, or chips, are essential to today’s connected and technology-driven world, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. They power the technologies that administer healthcare, enable telework, facilitate remote learning, and more.

“The need to increase semiconductor supply is urgent. Demand for technologies critical to COVID response and recovery, as well as public health, economic, education, workforce, and manufacturing priorities, continues growing at a lightning-fast pace,” the groups wrote. “We urge President Biden and his administration to work with the U.S. Congress to appropriately fund the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act while providing tax incentives for semiconductor manufacturing equipment and expenses related to domestic expansion."

“Intervening in semiconductor supply chains to the benefit of one or only a few chip-consuming industries, at the expense of many other sectors that have long relied on these components, will have real-world short-term and long-term consequences,” the groups continued. “Doing so, in the short term, could seriously hamper online learning, telehealth and health care, delivery of food and necessities, remote work, socially-distanced social and familial connections, emergency first response, vaccine distribution, and COVID recovery, to name just a few priorities that are powered by chip-enabled technologies. In the long run, efforts to address systemic problems like the digital divide and opportunity gap could be delayed, further denying millions of households from connecting to school, work, services, and their communities.”

Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), TechNet, Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), BSA | The Software Alliance, Technology CEO Council, USTelecom – The Broadband Association, SEMI, and Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) signed the letter.

Read the full letter here.

Related [National Security, Public Sector]