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HOR-13 · Tech Horizons · Living entry

Learn Semiconductors & Advanced Computing with any AI

The engines of the AI age

Semiconductors are the tiny chips that run essentially everything — and their design and manufacture have become one of the most strategically vital, geopolitically fraught industries on Earth. This node also covers the exotic computing paradigms coming after the classic transistor.

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A map of Semiconductors

The engines of the digital age

From the chip to the geopolitics.

  • Chip design & fabrication — how the most complex objects humans make are designed and built.
  • The geopolitics of chips — why semiconductors have become a matter of national security.
  • Neuromorphic computing — chips inspired by the brain.
  • Photonic & edge computing — computing with light, and closer to where data is created.
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The canon

The history of the chip

Real milestones.

  • The transistor (1947) — Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley at Bell Labs; the device that started it all.
  • The integrated circuit — Kilby and Noyce, putting many transistors on one chip.
  • Moore's Law (1965) — Gordon Moore's observation that transistor counts roughly double every couple of years.
  • The rise of the "fab" — the extraordinarily complex, concentrated business of actually making chips.
  • EUV lithography — the astonishing technology behind today's most advanced chips.
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The live debates

The debates over chips

Real, and strategically huge.

  • Is Moore's Law dead? And what, if anything, keeps performance climbing after it.
  • Chips as the new oil. The geopolitics of a supply chain concentrated in a few places — and the Taiwan question.
  • Beyond the transistor. Whether neuromorphic or photonic computing can deliver.
  • Sustainability. The enormous resource cost of chip fabrication.
  • Concentration. An industry where a handful of firms hold the whole world's supply.
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Where to start

A route in

A route in — everything runs from the panel above.

  1. Run Orientation on how chips work, or on the industry and its geopolitics.
  2. Use Great Debates on the future of Moore's Law.
  3. Connect to Computer Science, and to Frontier AI (whose progress depends on this).
  4. Turn on web search and run The Frontier for the latest.

Follow the chips: almost every other technology frontier ultimately runs on them.