A two-page spread in Time Magazine shows a huge wafer, the size of a 12-inch pizza, soon to be cut into an assortment of chips. Not corn or potato but silicon. Each of them is specific to a product.

Due to the backlog created by Covid, chip production slowed to a halt, such that when demand returned, a shortage was created. Toilet paper, ketchup packets, chicken wings: the shortage was felt in every industry.

The problem was that no one was paying attention to where chips were made, who was making them, and how much time it takes. Computer chips are found in almost everything, but the most cri...