The $52.7 billion US CHIPS and Science Act anchors one side of a contest mapped in a new policy analysis from India's Vivekananda International Foundation. Titled "The US-China Contest for Semiconductor Power," the report joins a crowded field of strategic commentary on a technology rivalry that now dictates wafer flows, lithography shipments, and alliance politics across the Pacific.

VIF, founded in 2009 in New Delhi, is a defense and strategic affairs think tank closely associated with India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Its publication enters a debate already shaped by analyses from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

What is the US-China contest about?

The title points to a rivalry measured along three axes: process node leadership, manufacturing capacity, and equipment access. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) operates the only high-volume 3nm fab in production at Hsinchu, with 2nm risk production scheduled for 2025. Samsung Foundry produces 3nm Gate-All-Around (GAA) parts at Hwaseong. Intel targets high-volume manufacturing on its 18A node, roughly 1.8nm class, at Rio Rancho, New Mexico, and Hillsboro, Oregon, in 2025.

China's leading foundry, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), reportedly produces 7nm chips using deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography with multi-patterning, following the launch of Huawei's Kirin 9000s in late 2023. Yield and cost data remain undisclosed. Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) and ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) anchor China's NAND and DRAM efforts respectively, though both remain on the US restricted entity list.

Why are export controls at the center?

The US Department of Commerce issued sweeping export controls on October 7, 2022, restricting shipments of advanced computing chips, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and US person support to China-based fabs operating at 14nm logic, 18nm DRAM, and 28nm NAND or below. On October 17, 2023, the Bureau of Industry and Security expanded restrictions to cover Nvidia's A800 and H800 accelerators, AMD's MI300, and additional advanced lithography components.

ASML, the Dutch monopoly supplier of EUV lithography systems, has been barred from shipping its most advanced Twinscan NXE and EXE tools to China since 2023. The restriction removes China's most realistic path to sub-7nm logic production at scale and is widely cited as the most consequential single chokepoint in the contest.

What does VIF add for industry readers?

The report's value will hinge on its specific recommendations for India, which has allocated roughly $10 billion under the India Semiconductor Mission and approved a Tata Electronics-Tower Semiconductor analog foundry project in Gujarat. Indian policymakers have signaled intent to capture mature-node assembly and back-end packaging work shifting away from China, though no greenfield leading-edge fab has yet broken ground on Indian soil.

Where does the contest head next?

The next inflection points will be the trajectory of Chinese mature-node capacity through 2025, the price impact of US-funded fab buildouts on leading-edge utilization, and whether allied governments in Japan, the Netherlands, and Germany tighten enforcement on equipment exports beyond the existing Wassenaar Arrangement framework. VIF's framing of the contest will be tested against these commercial and regulatory milestones through 2025.