What is this?
Technology’s center of gravity has shifted…
Santa Clara in California, Shenzhen in China, Leuven in Belgium, Hsinchu in Taiwan. As recently as the early 2010s, these cities were the center of action for the semiconductor industry and the tech industry more broadly. Supply chain ruptures, geopolitical tensions, and a global pandemic, however, have raised the clout of political capitals in guiding technological development. And no sector tells this story better than the semiconductor industry.
Washington, D.C., Beijing, Brussels, Taipei. Capitol buildings in these cities now craft laws whose influence on the chip industry rivals that of decisions made in many company boardrooms.
Semiconductor policy is undoubtably interesting in its own right, but this newsletter is not about comprehensively analyzing every line of every chip bill introduced in every national parliament. (Your author already did his service combing through iterations of the CHIPS Act in a previous job.)
Rather, each article on Chip Capitols is a fun dive into niche policy questions arising from semiconductor policy around the world:
I have a series of global chip subsidy articles, coauthored with insightful colleagues from around the world, comparing US policies to those in China🇨🇳, Europe🇪🇺, South Korea🇰🇷, Taiwan🇹🇼, & Japan🇯🇵
I share highlights from pieces I have published with scholars like Jordan Schneider and Chris Miller on public-private partnerships for semiconductor research. See this Institute for Progress piece and this piece in The Washington Post.
I also occasionally opine on European semiconductor strategy in articles with the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri), see here and here.
Ultimately, I hope readers will adopt my view that semiconductor policy is a dynamic lens for analyzing international relations, industrial policy, intellectual property, and other fields.
Thanks for being here! Please reach out anytime with feedback and share any posts you find interesting.
Who am I?
I’m Arrian Ebrahimi. I’m currently a J.D. candidate at Georgetown Law, and I was a Yenching Scholar for two years at Peking University in Beijing. I grew up in Silicon Valley and went to college at St. Edward’s University in Austin.
I previously worked in government affairs at a D.C.-based semiconductor trade association, as well as at the legal department of a chipmaker in Taiwan. All opinions shared here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my former employers or the groups they represent. More detailed citations for all articles are available upon request.
Lastly, I’m a cross-country kid, turned triathlete —shoutout to Capital Area Runners! Also a lover of Persian poetry, Chinese novels, and language learning~
💼 When time permits, I am also happy to do consulting projects and expert calls. Reach me at arrian.chipcapitols@gmail.com
