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| In September, the chip giant Intel gathered officials at a patch of land near Columbus, Ohio, where it pledged to invest at least $20 billion in two new factories to make semiconductors. | 去年9月，芯片巨头英特尔把官员召集到俄亥俄州哥伦布附近的一片土地上，承诺至少在那里投资200亿美元，建两家新半导体工厂。 |
| A month later, Micron Technology celebrated a new manufacturing site near Syracuse, N.Y., where the chip company expected to spend $20 billion by the end of the decade and eventually perhaps five times that. | 一个月后，美光科技在纽约州锡拉丘兹附近庆祝了一个新制造基地的选址，这家芯片公司预计到本十年截止时将在那里投资200亿美元，最终的投资可能是这个数字的五倍。 |
| And in December, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company hosted a shindig in Phoenix, where it plans to triple its investment to $40 billion and build a second new factory to create advanced chips. | 去年12月，台湾积体电路制造（简称“台积电”）在凤凰城举办了一场喧闹的聚会，庆祝将投资额增加两倍至400亿美元的计划，在当地建设第二家生产先进芯片的新工厂。 |
| The pledges are part of an enormous ramp-up in U.S. chip-making plans over the past 18 months, the scale of which has been likened to Cold War-era investments in the space race. The boom has implications for global technological leadership and geopolitics, with the United States aiming to prevent China from becoming an advanced power in chips, the slices of silicon that have driven the creation of innovative computing devices like smartphones and virtual-reality goggles. | 这些承诺是过去18个月美国大幅增加芯片制造计划的一部分，其规模堪比冷战时期在太空竞赛方面的投资。这种投资将影响全球技术领导地位和地缘政治，美国的目标是阻止中国成为芯片领域的先进大国，智能手机和虚拟现实护目镜等创新计算设备的诞生都是靠这些用硅片制造的小东西来推动的。 |
| Today, chips are an essential part of modern life even beyond the tech industry’s creations, from military gear and cars to kitchen appliances and toys. | 如今，芯片已成为现代生活的重要组成部分，其应用范围早已超出了技术领域——从军用装备到汽车、从厨房用具到玩具等各种东西。 |
| Across the nation, more than 35 companies have pledged nearly $200 billion for manufacturing projects related to chips since the spring of 2020, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade group. The money is set to be spent in 16 states, including Texas, Arizona and New York on 23 new chip factories, the expansion of nine plants, and investments from companies supplying equipment and materials to the industry. | 据行业组织半导体行业协会的说法，自2020年春季以来，全美范围内，已有逾35家公司承诺为与芯片相关的制造项目总共投资近2000亿美元。这些钱将投在16个州，包括得克萨斯州、亚利桑那州和纽约州，用于建设23家新的芯片工厂、扩建九家现有工厂，以及投资为该行业提供设备和材料的公司建设上。 |
| The push is one facet of an industrial policy initiative by the Biden administration, which is dangling at least $76 billion in grants, tax credits and other subsidies to encourage domestic chip production. Along with providing sweeping funding for infrastructure and clean energy, the efforts constitute the largest U.S. investment in manufacturing arguably since World War II, when the federal government unleashed spending on new ships, pipelines and factories to make aluminum and rubber. | 这些投资是拜登政府倡导的产业政策的一个方面，为鼓励国内的芯片生产，政府将提供至少760亿美元的拨款、税收抵免和其他补贴。除了为基础设施和清洁能源提供大量资金外，这些努力构成了可以说是自第二次世界大战以来美国对制造业的最大投资，“二战”后政府曾在建造新船、新管线，以及制造生产铝和橡胶的新工厂上大举投资。 |
| “I’ve never seen a tsunami like this,” said Daniel Armbrust, the former chief executive of Sematech, a now-defunct chip consortium formed in 1987 with the Defense Department and funding from member companies. | “我从未见过这么大的投资规模，”半导体制造技术联盟的前首席执行官丹尼尔·安布拉斯特说。该组织是国防部在1987年推动成立的一个芯片联盟，资金来自成员单位，现已不复存在。 |
| President Biden has staked a prominent part of his economic agenda on stimulating U.S. chip production, but his reasons go beyond the economic benefits. Much of the world’s cutting-edge chips today are made in Taiwan, the island to which China claims territorial rights. That has caused fears that semiconductor supply chains may be disrupted in the event of a conflict — and that the United States will be at a technological disadvantage. | 拜登总统已将其经济议程的重要部分押在刺激美国芯片生产上，但他这样做的理由超出了经济利益。世界上许多尖端芯片如今都在台湾制造，而中国宣称对台湾拥有主权。这引发了人们的担忧，一旦发生冲突，半导体供应链可能会中断，美国将处于技术劣势。 |
| The new U.S. production efforts may correct some of these imbalances, industry executives said — but only up to a point. | 行业高管说，在美国生产芯片的新努力可能会纠正供应链的一些不平衡，但也只是在一定程度上。 |
| The new chip factories would take years to build and might not be able to offer the industry’s most advanced manufacturing technology when they begin operations. Companies could also delay or cancel the projects if they aren’t awarded sufficient subsidies by the White House. And a severe shortage in skills may undercut the boom, as the complex factories need many more engineers than the number of students who are graduating from U.S. colleges and universities. | 新的芯片工厂需要数年时间才能建成，而且在刚开始生产时可能无法提供业界最先进的制造技术。公司也可能推迟或取消这些项目，如果白宫没有给予它们足够补贴的话。这方面技能的严重短缺可能会削弱投资，因为复杂的生产过程所需的工程师数量远远超过从美国高校毕业的数量。 |
| The bonanza of money on U.S. chip production is “not going to try or succeed in accomplishing self-sufficiency,” said Chris Miller, an associate professor of international history at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and the author of a recent book on the chip industry’s battles. | 美国为生产芯片投入大量资金“不是为了试图或成功实现自给自足”，塔夫茨大学弗莱彻法律与外交学院国际历史副教授克里斯·米勒说，他最近出版了一本有关芯片行业竞争的书。 |
| White House officials have argued that the chip-making investments will sharply reduce the proportion of chips needed to be purchased from abroad, improving U.S. economic security. At the TSMC event in December, Mr. Biden also highlighted the potential impact on tech companies like Apple that rely on TSMC for their chip-making needs. He said that “it could be a game changer” as more of these companies “bring more of their supply chain home.” | 白宫官员认为，芯片制造投资将大幅减少需要从国外购买的芯片比例，从而提高美国的经济安全。在去年12月的台积电活动上，拜登还强调了这些投资对苹果等科技公司的潜在影响，这些公司依赖台积电来满足其芯片制造需求。拜登说，“这可能会彻底改变行业面貌”，因为越来越多的公司在“将更多的供应链带回家”。 |
| U.S. companies led chip production for decades starting in the late 1950s. But the country’s share of global production capacity gradually slid to around 12 percent from about 37 percent in 1990, as countries in Asia provided incentives to move manufacturing to those shores. | 从1950年代末开始的数十年时间里，美国公司在芯片生产领域一直处于领先地位。但随着亚洲国家提供将芯片制造业转移到本国的激励措施，美国公司在全球芯片产能中占的份额已从1990年的约37%逐渐下降到现在的约12%。 |
| Today, Taiwan accounts for about 22 percent of total chip production and more than 90 percent of the most advanced chips made, according to industry analysts and the Semiconductor Industry Association. | 据行业分析师和半导体行业协会的说法，如今，台湾生产的芯片约占全球总产量的22%，而最先进芯片已占到全球产量的90%以上。 |
| The new spending is set to improve America’s position. A $50 billion government investment is likely to prompt corporate spending that would take the U.S. share of global production to as much as 14 percent by 2030, according to a Boston Consulting Group study in 2020 that was commissioned by the Semiconductor Industry Association. | 新投资将改善美国的地位。据半导体行业协会委托波士顿咨询集团在2020年进行的一项研究，500亿美元的政府投资可能会促使企业花更多的钱，将美国到2030年时生产的芯片在全球生产中的份额提高到14%。 |
| “It really does put us in the game for the first time in decades,” said John Neuffer, the association’s president, who added that the estimate may be conservative because Congress approved $76 billion in subsidies in a piece of legislation known as the CHIPS Act. | “这将让我们几十年来首次真正参与其中，”该协会主席约翰·诺伊弗说道。他还表示，14%的估计可能是保守的，因为国会通过的《芯片与科学法案》已批准了760亿美元的补贴。 |
| Still, the ramp-up is unlikely to eliminate U.S. dependence on Taiwan for the most advanced chips. Such chips are the most powerful because they pack the highest number of transistors onto each slice of silicon, and they are often held up as a sign of a nation’s technological progress. | 尽管如此，投资的增长不太可能消除美国在最先进芯片方面对台湾的依赖。这种芯片之所以强大，是因为它们在每个硅片上装下的晶体管数量最多，制造这种芯片的能力通常被视为一个国家技术进步的标志。 |
| Intel long led the race to shrink the size of transistors so more could fit on a chip. That pace of miniaturization is usually described in nanometers, or billionths of a meter, with smaller numbers indicating the most cutting-edge production technology. Then, TSMC surged ahead in recent years. | 长期以来，英特尔一直在缩小晶体管尺寸的竞赛中处于领先地位，晶体管越小，芯片上装下的就越多。微型化的步伐通常以纳米来描述，数字越小，表示生产技术越先进。最近几年，台积电已在这方面领先。 |
| But at its Phoenix site, TSMC may not import its most advanced manufacturing technology. The company initially announced that it would produce five-nanometer chips at the Phoenix factory, before saying last month that it would also make four-nanometer chips there by 2024 and build a second factory, which will open in 2026, for three-nanometer chips. It stopped short of discussing further advances. | 但台积电的凤凰城工厂可能不会引进它手中最先进的制造技术。台积电最初宣布将在凤凰城工厂生产五纳米技术的芯片，后来在去年12月表示，到2024年时，还将在那里生产四纳米技术的芯片，并建设于2026年投产的第二家工厂，用于生产三纳米技术的芯片。台积电没有讨论进一步的发展。 |
| In contrast, TSMC’s factories in Taiwan at the end of 2022 began producing three-nanometer technology. By 2025, factories in Taiwan will probably start supplying Apple with two-nanometer chips, said Handel Jones, chief executive at International Business Strategies. | 相比之下，台积电在台湾的工厂已在2022年底开始生产三纳米技术的芯片。国际商业战略的首席执行官汉德尔·琼斯说，到2025年时，台湾的工厂可能会开始向苹果供应两纳米技术的芯片。 |
| TSMC and Apple declined to comment. | 台积电和苹果拒绝置评。 |
| Whether other chip companies will bring more advanced technology for cutting-edge chips to their new sites is unclear. Samsung Electronics plans to invest $17 billion in a new factory in Texas but has not disclosed its production technology. Intel is manufacturing chips at roughly seven nanometers, though it has said its U.S. factories will turn out three-nanometer chips by 2024 and even more advanced products soon after that. | 尚不清楚其他芯片生产商是否会将更先进的尖端技术带到他们的新基地。三星电子计划在得克萨斯州投资170亿美元建一家新工厂，但尚未透露其生产技术。英特尔正在制造约七 纳米技术的芯片，尽管英特尔表示其美国工厂将在2024年之前开始生产三纳米技术的芯片，并在不久之后生产更先进的产品。 |
| The spending boom is also set to reduce, though not erase, U.S. reliance on Asia for other kinds of chips. Domestic factories produce only about 4 percent of the world’s memory chips — which are needed to store data in computers, smartphones and other consumer devices — and Micron’s planned investments could eventually raise that percentage. | 投资热潮也将降低（但不会消除）美国在其他类型芯片上对亚洲的依赖。美国国内工厂生产的存储芯片只占全球产量的约4%，这些芯片是在计算机、智能手机和其他消费者设备中存储数据所必需的，美光的投资计划最终可能会提高国产存储芯片的份额。 |
| But there are still likely to be gaps in a catchall variety of older, simpler chips, which were in such short supply over the past two years that U.S. automakers had to shut down factories and produce partly finished vehicles. TSMC is a major producer of some of these chips, but it is focusing its new investments on more profitable plants for advanced chips. | 但在各种各样更老、更简单的芯片上仍可能存在缺口，过去两年中这类芯片的供应短缺如此严重，以至于美国汽车制造商不得不关闭工厂，生产半成品。虽然台积电是某些此类芯片的主要生产商，但它正在将新投资的重点放在利润更高的先进芯片生产上。 |
| “We still have a dependency that is not being impacted in any way shape or form,” said Michael Hurlston, chief executive of Synaptics, a Silicon Valley chip designer that relies heavily on TSMC’s older factories in Taiwan. | “我们仍然有一种依赖性，新投资对这种依赖没有任何形式的影响，”Synaptics公司的首席执行官迈克尔·赫尔斯顿说，Synaptics是一家硅谷芯片设计公司，严重依赖台积电在台湾的老工厂。 |
| The chip-making boom is expected to create a jobs bonanza of 40,000 new roles in factories and companies that supply them, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. That would add to about 277,000 U.S. semiconductor industry employees. | 据半导体行业协会的数据，芯片制造投资热潮有望在供应这些芯片的工厂和公司中创造4万个新职位。这将在美国半导体行业增加约27.7万个职位。 |
| But it won’t be easy to fill so many skilled positions. Chip factories typically need technicians to run factory machines and scientists in fields like electrical and chemical engineering. The talent shortage is one of the industry’s toughest challenges, according to recent surveys of executives. | 但要填补这么多技术职位并不容易。芯片工厂通常需要技术人员来运行工厂的机器，还需要电气和化学工程等领域的科学家。 据最近对高管的调查，人才短缺是该行业最严峻的挑战之一。 |
| The CHIPS Act contains funding for work force development. The Commerce Department, which is overseeing the doling out of grant money from the CHIPS Act’s funds, has also made it clear that organizations hoping to obtain funding should come up with plans for training and educating workers. | 《芯片与科学法案》中包括用于劳动力发展的资金。负责监督该法案基金拨款的商务部也明确表示，想获得拨款的机构应拿出培训和教育员工的计划。 |
| Intel, responding to the issue, plans to invest $100 million to spur training and research at universities, community colleges and other technical educators. Purdue University, which built a new semiconductor laboratory, has set a goal of graduating 1,000 engineers each year and has attracted the chip maker SkyWater Technology to build a $1.8 billion manufacturing plant near its Indiana campus. | 英特尔针对这个问题计划投资一亿美元，以促进大学、社区学院和其他技术教育工作者的培训和研究。普渡大学新建了一个半导体实验室，设定了每年培养1000名工程师的目标，并吸引了芯片制造商SkyWater Technology在其印第安纳校区附近建设一个造价18亿美元的制造工厂。 |
| Yet training may go only so far, as chip companies compete with other industries that are in dire need of workers. | 然而，培训员工并不能解决所有问题，因为芯片生产公司与其他急需工人的行业存在人员竞争。 |
| “We’re going to have to build a semiconductor economy that attracts people when they have a lot of other choices,” Mitch Daniels, who was president of Purdue at the time, said at an event in September. | “我们将不得不建设一个半导体经济，在人们有很多其他选择的时候吸引他们，”成立实验室时任普渡大学校长的米奇·丹尼尔斯在去年9月的一次活动中说。 |
| Since training efforts may take years to bear fruit, industry executives want to make it easier for highly educated foreign workers to obtain visas to work in the United States or stay after they get their degrees. Officials in Washington are aware that comments encouraging more immigration could invite political fire. | 由于培训工作可能需要数年时间才能见效，行业高管希望政府让受过高等教育的外国工人更容易获得在美国工作的签证，或在获得学位后留在美国。华盛顿的官员意识到，鼓励更多移民的说法可能会在政治上引火烧身。 |
| But Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, was forthright in a speech in November at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. | 但商务部长吉娜·雷蒙多去年11月在麻省理工学院的一次讲话中直言不讳。 |
| Attracting the world’s best scientific minds is “an advantage that is America’s to lose,” she said. “And we’re not going to let that happen.” | 吸引世界上最优秀的科技人才是一个“美国可能失去的优势”，她说。“我们不会让这种情况发生。” |
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