#US needs to invest in chipmakers to compete in 5G: report

The US will have to beef up its investment in chipmakers if it hopes to compete against China in the fast-growing business of high-speed 5G wireless networks, according to a Japanese technology company.

As China continues to zoom past the US in terms of 5G infrastructure and hardware, American officials and businesses are hoping to close the gap by building software-based 5G networks, according to Politico.

But in order to successfully reach the scale needed to take on China, the US government needs to provide cash incentives to chipmakers to get them to develop new silicon.

“In China, their ability to build the silicon for 5G is just unparalleled,” Tareq Amin, chief technology officer for Japan’s Rakuten Mobile told the publication. “If you want to create a compelling US 5G technology, then you need to start from the heart, and the heart is the silicon.”

5G networks allow for significantly faster internet speeds and quicker response times than LTE.

Amin said that the government needs to offer “at least $1 billion” in incentives to big-name chipmakers like Intel and Broadcom along with “marching orders” to “create a highly disruptive silicon” in order to get the ball rolling.

“We cannot find the right material at the right cost, the right architecture, to address the future requirements for 5G radios to be made in the US,” he said, adding that the country “is in an amazing position to solve this, if they put the right incentives in front of all these top companies.”

A White House spokesperson said that the Trump administration “recognizes the importance of 5G” and is “studying options to further incentivize development.