Hi, I'm Danframack, and welcome to Axios Recap, presented by General Motors.

Today is Friday, April 30th.

House is up.

The White House is cracking down on menthol cigarettes, and we're focused on the global

chip shortage.

Most of us have never held a silicon chip in our hands, but we use all sorts of things that wouldn't work without them, our smartphones, computers, cars, and even increasingly

household appliances like refrigerators and washing machines. If the product is in any way,

quote, smart and it's not breathing, chances are it's

using a chip. But there's a problem, and of course there is because that's why we're doing a show

about this. The world overall isn't producing enough chips to satisfy demand, creating a shortage

that could impact product availability. And that's made even worse by a complicated supply chain that

includes some very difficult to get raw materials, and the fact that chip manufacturing plants

take a very, very long time to set up. Some analysts actually believe this problem will persist

through year end, while Intel, which is the world's largest chip maker, expects it to continue beyond

next year. We'll actually speak with a top Intel executive later in this show, but first

wanted to ask Axios chief technology correspondent Inafreed for her thoughts on why we don't

have enough chips and if we're already seeing an impact. Chips are made from silicon, like grains

of sand. Shouldn't we be able to make

these anywhere we make tech products? But actually semiconductors are really precision instruments with

tiny, tiny wiring, almost microscopic, thinner than a human hair. And so really there's only a

handful of places around the world that can make chips, especially at the leading edges,

at the thinnest forms of wiring. So what happens is it's a really delicate balance of having

...