{"id":31732,"date":"2026-02-15T18:39:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T17:39:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fundacionbankinter.org\/?post_type=noticias&p=31732"},"modified":"2026-09-08T17:56:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T15:56:27","slug":"semiconductorsai-geopolitics-european-challenge","status":"publish","type":"noticias","link":"https:\/\/www.fundacionbankinter.org\/en\/news\/semiconductorsai-geopolitics-european-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Semiconductors in the Age of Exponential Growth: AI, Geopolitics, and the European Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The digital economy is based on a very specific physical basis: semiconductors<\/strong><\/a>. Advanced chips support artificial intelligence<\/a>, the cloud, electric vehicles, data centers or the energy transition. At the same time, this industry is experiencing a particularly intense combination of accelerated growth<\/strong>, geopolitical pressure<\/strong> and structural industrial challenges<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

This article opens a new series dedicated to the Future Trends Forum (FTF) expert presentations on Semiconductors<\/strong><\/a>. A series aimed at analysing the underlying forces that are redefining a sector that is critical for global competitiveness and, in a very direct way, for Europe’s strategic positioning.<\/p>\n\n

The starting point is the vision of Ajit Manocha<\/strong><\/a>, President and CEO of SEMI,<\/strong><\/a> the leading international association in the sector. Its message is clear from the start: the semiconductor industry has entered a phase of growth and transformation unprecedented in its recent history<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

The Future Trends Forum: Understanding the Dynamics That Build the Future<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

For more than a decade, the Bankinter Innovation Foundation’s Future Trends Forum <\/a>has brought together international experts, business leaders, technologists and academics<\/strong> to analyse the major technological, economic and social transformations that will mark the next decade.<\/p>\n\n

The FTF’s approach focuses on identifying structural dynamics<\/strong>, beyond the short term, with the aim of providing strategic criteria to companies, institutions and public policy makers. Its reports have established themselves as references in areas such as artificial intelligence<\/a>, quantum computing<\/a>, water<\/a> and, now, semiconductors<\/strong>, a sector that has come to occupy a central place in the global economic and geopolitical agenda. <\/p>\n\n

The real size of the market: forecasts and effective turnover<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

One of the first points raised by Ajit Manocha is the difference between the industry’s growth forecasts<\/strong> and its real economic dimension already reached<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

The most widely cited estimates put the global semiconductor market at around $1.3 trillion by 2030<\/strong>, starting from a current turnover of close to $600 billion<\/strong>. Manocha believes that these figures systematically underestimate the real size of the sector and points to a more ambitious scenario, with an industry that could reach 1.6 trillion dollars by the end of the decade<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n

The key is in what is measured. Traditional statistics only include chips sold on the market<\/strong>, but leave out an increasingly relevant phenomenon: semiconductors designed for internal use by large technology companies<\/strong>. Companies such as Google, Apple or Meta develop advanced chips that are not commercialized, but that generate direct economic value and sustain critical artificial intelligence and large-scale computing infrastructures. <\/p>\n\n

According to Manocha, this segment represents more than 300,000 million dollars per year<\/strong> that do not appear in official figures. If these developments for own use are incorporated, the industry is already close to a trillion dollars in effective economic activity<\/strong>, well above the turnover reflected in conventional statistics. <\/p>\n\n

This starting point reinforces the strength of the growth forecasts for the coming years and helps to understand why semiconductor has become one of the industries with the greatest economic and strategic impact on a global scale.<\/p>\n\n

An industry marked by exponential growth<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

After more than 45 years of experience in the sector, Ajit Manocha<\/strong> underlines two concepts that define the current moment: exponential<\/strong> and unprecedented<\/strong>. The industry has left behind an incremental evolution to enter an acceleration phase driven by several consecutive technological waves. <\/p>\n\n

The first was the Internet of Things (IoT),<\/strong><\/a> which began to be deployed at the beginning of the century and has connected about 80% of the world’s population. The smartphone has become the control center of everyday life, from home to work or mobility.<\/p>\n\n

Artificial intelligence<\/strong><\/a> has joined this wave with force. While AI has been developing at a conceptual level for decades, its mass adoption has come with the availability of advanced hardware<\/strong>: GPUs and CPUs built on nodes of 5 nanometers and below<\/strong>, capable of training and running complex models on a large scale.<\/p>\n\n

According to Manocha<\/strong>, the current development of AI represents only an initial phase. The potential for growth remains high, both in chip volume and in technological complexity. <\/p>\n\n

The Next Wave: Quantum and Advanced Semiconductors<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

The sequence of growth is clear. After connectivity and artificial intelligence, quantum computing<\/strong><\/a> appears as the next great technological wave. Manocha<\/strong> places the next decade as a key period for its progressive deployment, with a direct impact on the demand for specialized semiconductors. <\/p>\n\n

This chain of technologies explains why the growth of the sector is sustained beyond economic cycles. Even in a context of market adjustments or geopolitical tensions, the structural trend<\/strong> points to a continued expansion of the industry. <\/p>\n\n

AI chips and the prominence of foundries<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

One piece of data sums up the current situation well: 50% of the chips manufactured today incorporate artificial intelligence capabilities<\/strong>. AI has ceased to be a niche to become a transversal component, integrated into all kinds of devices and systems. <\/p>\n\n

This context of accelerated growth is clearly reinforcing the foundry<\/strong><\/a> model<\/strong>. Manocha<\/strong> stresses that the development and manufacture of advanced chips requires a very demanding combination of capital, industrial scale and technological capabilities<\/strong>, to the point that very few companies can undertake this effort in a sustained way. Investing billions of dollars in new factories and processes has become a structural barrier to entry for the industry.<\/p>\n\n

On the most advanced frontier of technology, Manocha<\/strong> identifies only two, at most three players<\/strong>, capable of consistently supplying cutting-edge chips: TSMC,<\/strong><\/a> Samsung Electronics<\/strong><\/a> and Intel<\/strong><\/a>, the latter immersed in a process of industrial recovery and transformation. The rest of the manufacturers, he explains, are moving forward and will end up closing part of the gap, but the journey is complex and requires time.<\/p>\n\n

The difficulty increases as the industry approaches nodes of 2 nanometers and below<\/strong>. Manocha recalls that, although the sector has repeatedly announced the end of miniaturization, the current challenge is especially demanding. Each technological leap requires increasing complexity in design, manufacturing, and process control, making reaching these extreme scales both a technological and financial challenge. <\/p>\n\n

Moore’s Law enters a new phase<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

For decades, the continuous reduction in the size of transistors has fueled Moore’s Law<\/strong><\/a>. Today, the sector is approaching increasingly demanding physical limits: going from the current 20 angstroms to 10, 7 or even 2 angstroms means working close to the atomic scale.<\/p>\n\n

This context drives a new stage, known as Moore’s Law 2.0<\/strong><\/a>, based on:<\/p>\n\n