Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology

Chris Miller

Simon and Schuster, 2025 M09 16 - 480 pages

The Financial Times Business Book of the Year, this epic account of the decades-long battle to control one of the world’s most critical resources—microchip technology—with the United States and China increasingly in fierce competition is “pulse quickening…a nonfiction thriller” (The New York Times).

You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves—runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower, but America’s edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by players in Taiwan, Korea, and Europe taking over manufacturing. Now, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more on chips than any other product, is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the US. At stake is America’s military superiority and economic prosperity.

Economic historian Chris Miller explains how the semiconductor came to play a critical role in modern life and how the US became dominant in chip design and manufacturing and applied this technology to military systems. America’s victory in the Cold War and its global military dominance stems from its ability to harness computing power more effectively than any other power. Until recently, China had been catching up, aligning its chip-building ambitions with military modernization. Here, in this paperback edition of the book, the author has added intriguing new material focused on "America's Chip Comeback,” which overviews the global consequences of the just passed CHIPS Act, the new export controls on China, and the effort to rally allies to better guard chip technology.

Illuminating, timely, and fascinating, Chip War is “an essential and engrossing landmark study” (The Times, London).

Contents

• The Switch 9: 9
• Liftoff 19: 19
• THE CIRCUITRY OF THE AMERICAN WORLD: 33
• Copy It: 41
• Transistor Girls: 51
• Precision Strike: 57
• Supply Chain Statecraft: 63
• Intels Revolutionaries: 67
• The Pentagons Offset Strategy: 73
• LEADERSHIP LOST?: 79
• That Competition Is Tough: 81
• At War with Japan: 85
• Shipping Junk: 91
• The Crude Oil of the 1980s: 97
• Death Spiral: 103
• The Japan That Can Say No: 109
• AMERICA RESURGENT: 115
• The Potato Chip King: 117
• Disrupting Intel: 123
• The Rise of Korea: 129
• This Is the Future: 135
• The KGBs Directorate T: 141
• The Impact of the Offset: 145
• War Hero: 151
• The Cold War Is Over and You Have Won: 155
• INTEGRATED CIRCUITS INTEGRATED WORLD?: 161
• We Want a Semiconductor Industry in Taiwan: 163
• All People Must Make Semiconductors: 171
• Sharing Gods Love with the Chinese: 177
• Lithography Wars: 183
• The Innovators Dilemma: 191
• Running Faster?: 197
• OFFSHORING INNOVATION?: 203
• Real Men Have Fabs: 205
• The Fabless Revolution: 209
• Morris Changs Grand Alliance: 215
• Apple Silicon: 221
• EUV: 225
• There Is No Plan B: 231
• How Intel Forgot Innovation: 235
• vii: 241
• Made in China: 243
• Call Forth the Assault: 247
• Technology Transfer: 255
• Mergers Are Bound to Happen: 263
• The Rise of Huawei: 269
• The 5G Future: 277
• The Next Offset: 283
• Everything Were Competing On: 295
• Fujian Jinhua: 305
• The Assault on Huawei: 311
• Chinas Sputnik Moment?: 319
• Shortages and Supply Chains: 327
• The Taiwan Dilemma: 335
• Conclusion: 345
• Afterword: 353
• Acknowledgments: 365
• Index: 427

About the author

Chris Miller is Professor of International History at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He also serves as non-resident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and as a Director at Greenmantle, a New York and London-based macroeconomic and geopolitical consultancy. He is the author of three previous books—Putinomics, The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy, and We Shall Be Masters—and he frequently writes for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The American Interest, and other outlets. He received a PhD in history from Yale University and a BA in history from Harvard University. Visit his website at ChristopherMiller.net and follow him on X @CRMiller1.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology
• Author: Chris Miller
• Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 2025
• ISBN: 1982172010, 9781982172015
• Length: 480 pages