There was once a government which wanted its country to be a world-class computer manufacturer.
To achieve this, the government decided it needed to be world-class in chips. So it did three things:
It put tariffs and quotas on imports of chips
Foreign companies wanting to sell into the country had to license their technology to local firms.
Local firms were only allowed to license chip technology if they made the chips for export and sub-licensed the technology to other local firms.
The government then organised the six leading local chip companies into three pairings and gave them subsidies of $200 million over four years to develop leading-edge chips.
Subsequently a second development programme spent $65 million over five years.
Eleven years after the beginning of the first programme, the country was in mass production of the leading example of the most technologically advanced and most valuable chip product sector.
It took the rest of the world a full year to produce a similar product.
MORAL: Money Greases Many Wheels
Japan?
Yes, nxper