> why don't we see funding for this at a government level
Because America fell asleep at the wheel while Taiwan did not. TSMC and other Taiwanese chip manufacturers benefited from a government that saw the need to be a part of high value manufacturing. Meanwhile America of the 90s and 2000s assumed that it would be the most powerful country in perpetuity and so it wouldn't matter where something was being produced as long as they could pay for it.
The events of the 2010s has shown the flaws of this thinking. It is now possible for American firms to be cut off completely from semiconductor manufacturing, similar to how Huawei was cut off. There is now support from the American government to restore semiconductor manufacturing. They are footing a part of the bill for TSMC's new plant. I'm sure Intel's lobbyists are skilled enough to get part of their new plants paid for as well. China is doing the same - the state has deployed all it's resources behind SMIC to ensure that what happened to Huawei never happens again.
It's more complicated than this though. You don't just need semiconductor fabs, you also need rare earth metals, almost all of which is mined and refined in China. America is attempting to reshore this too (https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/03/31/g...)
> need rare earth metals, almost all of which is mined and refined in China
This is usually presented as an ace up the sleeve that China has secured through shrewd strategic thinking. In reality, rare earth metals are neither particularly rare, nor are they expensive, nor are they in high demand.
Rare earth metals are more common than silver or mercury, somewhat rarer than cobalt. The ones with excellent magnetic quantities go for ~$50 per kilo (allegedly only 200g is required per electric car), the ones used for catalysts and alloy making go for as low as $2 per kilo, cheaper than copper.
They're not nearly as much of a constraint as claimed.
This is my understanding as well; one of the reasons why China has such a high percentage of that market isn't because no one else can, but rather that they don't want to. The environmental damage is often horrendous [1][2] so everyone that can outsources it. I believe there's also been a lot of work on reducing or replacing relience on those materials in quite a few areas, as I believe a parent comment mentioned.
Intel's new fab is in the US (where I reside), I hope they get subsidized as I'm worried about our manufacturing capability across the board. It's affecting what I'm looking to purchase as well, having a few issues with my Ryzen 5900X system and instability matters far more than performance so I'm thinking hard to an Intel alternative. "Slow" but stable, and investing in the US? Sign me up.
Because America fell asleep at the wheel while Taiwan did not. TSMC and other Taiwanese chip manufacturers benefited from a government that saw the need to be a part of high value manufacturing. Meanwhile America of the 90s and 2000s assumed that it would be the most powerful country in perpetuity and so it wouldn't matter where something was being produced as long as they could pay for it.
The events of the 2010s has shown the flaws of this thinking. It is now possible for American firms to be cut off completely from semiconductor manufacturing, similar to how Huawei was cut off. There is now support from the American government to restore semiconductor manufacturing. They are footing a part of the bill for TSMC's new plant. I'm sure Intel's lobbyists are skilled enough to get part of their new plants paid for as well. China is doing the same - the state has deployed all it's resources behind SMIC to ensure that what happened to Huawei never happens again.
It's more complicated than this though. You don't just need semiconductor fabs, you also need rare earth metals, almost all of which is mined and refined in China. America is attempting to reshore this too (https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/03/31/g...)