Intel’s CEO: America Must Choose to Compete

U.S. Leadership in Semiconductor is Not Inevitable, Says Craig Barrett

by Anton Shilov

[ 03/02/2005 | 11:51 PM ]

The world’s largest maker of semiconductors has come a long way and managed to come out victor even in the most dramatic pages of the company’s history. From the times of Robert Noyce in the CEO office to the moment when Craig Barrett is about to become the company’s chairman Intel has always created technologies that impacted the IT world.

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Along with Intel, the USA and Silicon Valley became the world’s main citadel of chips used in various applications. But now the company’s CEO says the U.S. education and economic system at some point may not allow the country to compete successfully in the environment with rivals around the globe.

“In the past 10 years a truly epochal change has taken place almost without notice: nearly half of the world’s population has joined the world’s free market economic system… The most obvious consequence is that suddenly there are three billion new potential customers for goods and services produced in free market economies. A less obvious effect is that there are also three billion new potential competitors for jobs producing those goods and services,” writes Intel’s outgoing CEO.

“Even if we assume that no more than 10% of those three billion people have had the educational opportunities that will enable them to compete for high-wage jobs, that means that there are 300 million people – a workforce slightly larger than the entire United States population – ready and eager to raise their standard of living through more productive labor,” Barrett says.

“We must resolve as a country that the competition is real, that winning is not inevitable, and that we must decide to be competitive or there will be serious consequences,” believes Intel’s future chairman.

Mr. Barrett points four directions the USA must address to maintain the lead in the IT industry:

1. Repair and restore our education system;
2. Improve our competitive position by increasing our investment in quality research;
3. Invest in modernizing our infrastructure, beginning with the communications infrastructure;
4. Adopt a Hippocratic Oath concerning government policy toward business and economic growth: first do no harm.

• Intel’s CEO Open Letter in the SIA Quarterly Issue.