“None of us forecast it,” said Gelsinger adding “everybody still believes the semiconductor industry doubles this decade. We have to keep making those long-term investments.”
While accepting some short-term drawbacks, Gelsinger said, “my long-term capital build-outs for leadership and capacity stay steady.”
“I feel like hitting the brakes and hitting the gas at the same time,” said Gelsinger.
Although most leading edge chips are now made in Asia “we are fixing that,” said Gelsinger, referring to his five nodes in four years project.
Gelsinger supported European moves to gain self-sufficiency. “Europe should be able to say. ‘I can meet my critical industry requirements,” he said reflecting the exact same argument used by Pasquale Pistorio to persuade the EU to invest in chips in the 1980s.
“We needed a global crisis to realize that we had allowed ourselves to become acutely dependent on single points of failure in the supply chain on critical aspects,” said Gelsinger, advocating a “balanced, resilient supply chain.”
