CHIPS WITH EVERYTHING

EXCLUSIVE: From healthcare to warfare, communication to spacecraft, microchips have revolutionised human life. But as the battle for AI sovereignty ramps up, the world's increasing dependency on the minute super technology may come at a cost.

- PROFESSOR RAKESH KUMAR

MOST TECHNOLOGY in the world today revolves around a postage stamp-sized electronic device called a microchip.

Often also called a ‘chip’ or ‘integrated circuit,’ a microchip is a tiny electronic brain. It contains billions of microscopic switches that perform calculations and manipulate data at lightning speeds.

Never has something so small created such a big impact.

Chips power smartphones, cameras, televisions, microwaves, and cars. Chips birthed computers and the internet, which have impacted every aspect of human life.

They have revolutionised healthcare, enabling the fast development of drugs and vaccines, cheap, small, and capable medical devices, and telehealth, smart bands and medical imaging systems.

They have revolutionised the economy, personal behaviour and warfare. Modern aircraft, spacecraft and missiles depend on chips for navigation, control, safety and communication.

While the microscopic switch – the transistor – was invented in 1947, it took another 12 years for the chip to be invented.

Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments first came up with the implementation of a chip in 1959. The potential of the invention to revolutionise society was immediately clear to everyone – the New York Times named it as one of the top three inventions of the year.

Robert Noyce, from Fairchild Semiconductor, soon came up with an implementation that would allow mass production. Money poured in. Every new generation of chips packed even more switches, providing even greater capability.

The invention soon changed the world, as I examine in my new book, The Chip Age: How Chips Shaped Our Past and Will Define Our Future.