WASHINGTON – May 25, 2022 – The Wall Street Journal — Washington, DC
America’s digital infrastructure has been a crucial part of the response to the Covid-19 crisis. But what if it becomes a problem? Semiconductors underlie many things we take for granted and desperately need: telecommunications, remote industrial controls, emergency services, and transportation and fleet-management networks. If a digital catastrophe hit, Americans could lose access to electricity, water and banking. The military could be exposed. The continuity of government could be broken. The basic fabric of modern life would take years to recover.
There are three primary causes of America’s pernicious cyber vulnerability: manufacturing economics, advances in microfabrication, and new design paradigms. For the past 25 years, industry’s focus has been on compliance to behavioral specifications—on doing things right. Now it has to consider whether the chips designed at home but built overseas are doing the right things. A deliberate manipulation by a foreign enemy could be worse than a viral infection, and would dramatically reshape great-power competition.
