The article identifies three areas as "high tech manufacturing": Computer and electronic products, Pharmaceuticals & medicine, and Aerospace products and parts.

The article identifies three areas as "high tech manufacturing": Computer and electronic products, Pharmaceuticals & medicine, and Aerospace products and parts. It's likely microchip development would have happened somewhere else without large US defense contracts. The industry was literally created by defense contracts for things like spy satellites, combat aircraft, and ICBMs. Same with aerospace. The entire commercial aerospace industry exists because of bomber development in WW II, and all the engine tech since was initially developed and deployed in military aircraft. Carbon fiber, radar, fly-by-wire, plus the entire manufacturing process that produces aircraft that work the first time were all technologies developed or made practical to manufacture for the military. There's a reason passenger aircraft aren't manufactured in countries without a lot of military spending - companies like Boeing, Airbus, UAC, and Comac all depend on military contracts to pay development costs. What constitutes high tech manufacturing is probably a bit different today. I would include sectors like exotic materials (superconductors, boutique alloys, and almost-here stuff like graphene and CNTs) and battery tech.