Taiwan · Google · Eric Schmidt · The Register
Uncle Sam bets $500 million that Alphabet spinoff's AI can dig up new semiconductor materials
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Key facts
- The CHIPS and Science Act, signed into law by President Biden in 2022, was designed in part to dole out $52 billion to US firms to reignite domestic semiconductor manufacturing, which has mostly fled
- Despite AI industry leaders prognosticating they'd be popping AI-designed drugs in 2025, AI has yet to design a functional medicine, according to the US National Institutes of Health
- SandboxAQ (that’s AI and Quantum, for those wondering), which spun off from Alphabet in 2022 under the chairmanship of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, announced the award Wednesday
- A company spokesperson told The Register in an email that it still uses real-world data where possible
Summary
To move more semiconductor manufacturing onshore, the US needs to depend less on foreign-sourced materials. SandboxAQ (that’s AI and Quantum, for those wondering), which spun off from Alphabet in 2022 under the chairmanship of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, announced the award Wednesday. According to SandboxAQ, the $500 million awarded to it by the Department of Commerce will go toward developing “novel molecules and formulations for semiconductor manufacturing," including chip production materials that are free of PFAS ("forever chemicals"), new semiconductor fabrication catalysts, magnets that don’t rely on foreign-sourced neodymium and other rare earths, and fab-powering batteries that don’t rely on majority foreign-sourced materials like lithium.