How Chip Shortages Changed Global Manufacturing
June 16, 2026 · Frisian News
Between 2020 and 2023, the global chip shortage pushed prices up 30 to 50 percent. The biggest winners were not small manufacturers but the largest chip makers, while governments poured billions into the same corporations already in control.
Between 2020 and 2023, the global semiconductor shortage pushed the price of a single chip up 30 to 50 percent. Car makers shut down factories. Phone makers delayed releases. But the biggest winners were not small manufacturers scrambling to adapt. They were the largest chip makers, Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor, which locked in contracts worth billions while prices stayed high.
The shortage exposed a fragile supply chain that barely anyone had questioned before. Just-in-time manufacturing, the gospel of corporate efficiency for thirty years, depended on an unbroken flow from port to factory. When COVID shuttered plants in Malaysia and Taiwan, the whole system broke. But instead of building resilience, most companies simply paid more for faster delivery and moved on.
Smaller manufacturers faced the hardest squeeze. A startup that relied on generic chips had to wait months while Apple secured its orders within days. By 2024, larger rivals had bought dozens of smaller electronics firms at fire-sale prices. The shortage became a consolidation event. Big firms absorbed supply. Small firms disappeared.
The response from governments was predictable. The U.S. poured $52 billion into domestic chip manufacturing. Europe launched its own programs. But these investments flowed to the same corporations that already dominated the market. Intel received the bulk of American funding. Samsung got European money. Policy deepened the chip oligopoly.
Few observers asked whether the shortage proved something else: that the world depended too heavily on a handful of suppliers for a critical resource. Governments could have built redundancy or supported smaller makers. Instead, from Beijing to Brussels, they chose to pour public money into the companies already in control. The shortage changed manufacturing, but not in the way that would have made it more resilient.
Published June 16, 2026 · Frisian News