United States President Joe Biden has passed legislation allocating $280 billion to high-tech development and scientific research in an effort to compete with China.
The investment includes tax breaks for companies that build computer chip manufacturing plants in America.
Concerned that the country will continue to lose its technological edge and wanting to reduce dependence on Beijing, business groups have long pushed for more support from the government.
In fact, the Covid-19 lockdown that is sweeping the world that is driving a global microchip shortage reinforces their reason for doing so.
The world's giant economy currently produces around 10% of the global supply of semiconductors, down from nearly 40% in 1990.
The bill allocates about $200 billion to agencies such as the National Science Foundation aimed at increasing investment in robotics and wireless communications.
Biden described it as a 'once in a generation' investment and said it was already paying off for the US.
This leads to plans from Micron to spend $40 billion on memory chip manufacturing, a project expected to create 40,000 jobs.
