Chris Stokel-Walker in Nature:
Few items are so imperceptible to the public, yet so essential to their lives, as the semiconductor. The computer chip powers the machinery, systems and interfaces that people interact with on a daily basis. The average person will encounter a semiconductor dozens of times a day, whether it’s a small chip in their thermostat, in their computer or phone’s motherboard or in their vehicle’s entertainment system.
Despite their diminutive status, chips have become a very big deal. They are the object through which almost every modern anxiety passes: artificial intelligence, industrial sovereignty, military escalation, environmental strain, supply-chain fragility and the future of scientific discovery.
Rakesh Kumar, a computer engineer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, understands how important chips are. And in The Chip Age, he tries to explain how these fingernail-sized gizmos have become the material substrate of contemporary power.
More here.
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