I would not be the least bit surprised if it cost $150B to $250B to capitalize a new 'state of the art' semiconductor fab. I'm a bit surprised they didn't shoo

I would not be the least bit surprised if it cost $150B to $250B to capitalize a new 'state of the art' semiconductor fab. I'm a bit surprised they didn't shoot a bit lower and just try to replicate ASML's machines. Those are one of the unobtainium pieces that cost so much in a new fab. In my experience the only way to compete with a long established player is to learn the business from the ground up and expect a loooong learning curve. What that might look like with semiconductors is building an ingot plant that can sell ingots that the established player can use. Then start slicing them and selling passivated ingots for a bit more margin, then use "marginal" ingots to make large node (like 140nm or 90nm) chips in the good areas to develop training around the workflow. Ideally those chips have some nominal market value and sales can act as a 'discount' on your investment (say it costs you $1B to make the chips and you sell them for $500M, you've basically invested $500M in learning the work flow instead of a full $1B). Expect this to take 10 - 15 years minimum, 25 years more typically. Invest in university programs to train process engineers, physicists, and circuit designers. "Seed" several universities with small 300mm fabs to give students real experience rather than just "book learning." Aggressively weed out people who cheat to get through school. Its a really really huge deal to take on this task. It was insanely complicated in the 90's and now it is even more so. The only thing China has going for it is that it doesn't need to repeat the mistakes made in the last 30 years that other semiconductor companies made and so their path is a bit more "straight line." But if experience is any guide, there is no shortcut to doing the work, no matter how much money you spend.