Monopolies Disguised as Manufacturers
Let us look at the titans holding the cards. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company does not sketch out its own chips. It builds them for the giants. Removing them from the global ecosystem would not just be a headache. It would be an immediate, catastrophic halt to modern tech.
Then there is ASML. They build the complex machines that print microscopic circuits onto silicon wafers.
They are the only company on earth that can do this at the highest level.
That is not a competitive advantage. That is a moat filled with very hungry crocodiles. Without them, the entire parade stops. Micron occupies a similarly critical, if slightly different, seat by supplying the memory chips that artificial intelligence so desperately needs to function.