How the US Won Back Chip Manufacturing

State capacity from scratch

Jordan Schneider, Lily Ottinger, Todd Fisher, and Mike Schmidt

Feb 17, 2026

∙ Paid

This post originally appeared in ChinaTalk.

“It was definitely not baked in… The concept that AI would drive this massive demand cycle was not part of the original calculus.”

We’re here for a CHIPS Act megapod, in person with Mike Schmidt and Todd Fisher, the director and founding CIO of the CHIPS Program Office, respectively.

We discuss…

The mechanisms behind the success of the CHIPS Act,
What CHIPS can teach us about other industrial policy challenges, like APIs and rare earths,
What it takes to build a successful industrial policy implementation team,
How the fear of “another Solyndra” is holding back US industrial policy,
Chris Miller’s recent interest in revitalizing America’s chemical industry.

Listen now on your favorite podcast app.

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A guest post by

Lily Ottinger

I write about the political economy of authoritarian states. Editor and Taiwan analyst for ChinaTalk.

A guest post by

Todd Fisher

Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for Progress; Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School; Fmr Chief Investment Officer CHIPS Program Office; Fmr Private Equity Partner and Chief Administrative Officer KKR

A guest post by

Mike Schmidt

Distinguished Visitor at Princeton University, Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Institute for Progress, and former Director of the CHIPS Program Office