Sovereign money chases the chip

Semiconductors are the fourth-largest manufactured market in the world, behind oil, cars and petrochemicals, and the only one of the four that is expected to double in a decade. That arithmetic has not escaped the sovereign wealth funds.

The pitch is diversification: economies built on a single export are looking for a second act, and a chip plant employs engineers rather than drillers. The reality is that a modern fab costs more than a new airport and takes as long to build.

Whether the plants get built, and whether they find customers when they do, will be one of the defining industrial questions of the decade.