The US imported a record $253 billion worth of semiconductors and data processing units in 2025. That figure represents 0.9% of the nation’s entire GDP, a level that surpasses even the frenzied peaks of the dot-com bubble.

For an economy that consumes more chips than any other nation on earth yet sources roughly 90% of them from abroad, this is the kind of record you celebrate with a nervous laugh rather than champagne.

The AI hunger games

The explosive buildout of AI infrastructure, from massive data centers to the high-performance computing clusters that train large language models, has created an almost insatiable appetite for advanced chips.

The US isn’t alone in this scramble. China’s semiconductor…