1 . One firm's crisis is another's opportunity. A shortage-of semiconductors has helped pump up the valuations of firms such as Nvidia, whose chips power everything from video-gaming to machine learning and data centres. But boom time for sellers means_________for buyers. Carmakers, whose products have become computers on wheels, are among the victims. Profits at
Ford, America's second-biggest carmaker by volume, fell by half in the most recent quarter amid a global shortage of chips.Analysts say the industry might build around 5m fewer cars this year, all
_________their tiniest components.
Carmakers are not the only firms feeling the pinch.Apple and Microsoft have also warned that they will be affected.Politicians are being drawn in, too. Chips will be on the_________later this month when America's vice-president, Kamala Harris, visits Vietnam, which has a flourishing electronics industry, Angela Merkel, the outgoing German chancellor, has lamented. Europe's small share of global chip production.
The shortage is the result of a sudden surge in demand.Chipmaking is a_______business which, between the peaks and troughs, has been enjoying strong growth for decades as computers creep into every comer of society.That trend was_________by the pandemic. Locked-down consumers shopped online, logged into meetings remotely, and wiled away the hours with video-streaming and video-gaming.The result has been a sharp increase in demand for the semiconductors that power the data centres and gadgets that make such things possible, logging factories with_________.
The crisis has had three consequences, two_________and one less so.The first is an investment boom.Big producers such as Intel, Samsung and tsme are planning to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on extra capacity over the next few years. As in many markets, high prices are the best cure for high prices.
The second is that the chip industry's customers are adapting, too. When demand_______early in the pandemic, carmakers cut their orders with chipmakers.The car industry's size and power mean that it is used to ordering suppliers around. But when demand recovered, it found itself at the back of the queue, because of long lead times and competition for capacity from the even bigger and more influential tech industry.
The unpleasant experience of being the supplicant rather than the boss has prompted carmakers to take tighter control over supplies of vital components.Following in the tyre-treads of Tesla, Volkswagen has announced plans to develop driver-assistance chips in-house.Other firms are forming closer relationships with chipmakers. Toyota, a Japanese firm, has_________the shortage relatively well, partly because it was slower to cut orders when the pandemic hit. In June Robert Bosch, a big supplier of automotive parts, cut the________on a €1bn($l.2bn) chip factory of its own in Dresden.Redesigned supply chains will be more resilient.
The third,__________effect has been a surge of techno-nationalism.America is planning to____________billions of dollars to lure chipmakers back from East Asia.Europe wants to double its share of global production, to 20%, by 2030. Even Britain has declared the fate of a small chip factory in Wales to be a matter of national security.
There is some force in the argument that chips have come to occupy what used to be called the "________heights" of an economy, in the way that oil refineries or car factories did in the 20th century. The concentration of production in Taiwan,__________, is an uncomfortable geopolitical risk. But as last century's governments discovered, subsidies lead to overcapacity and oversupply—and, eventually, to yet more calls for public money to prop up uncompetitive businesses.The chip shortage is mostly a________problem.Governments should resist the temptation to see themselves as saviours.
1. | A．envy | B．annoyance | C．misery | D．delight |
2. | A．for want of | B．for possession of | C．for fear of | D．for convenience of |
3. | A．schedule | B．agenda | C．calendar | D．catalogue |
4. | A．cynical | B．cyclical | C．crystal | D．clinical |
5. | A．amplified | B．justified | C．modified | D．diversified |
6. | A．samples | B．goods | C．orders | D．stocks |
7. | A．encouraging | B．touching | C．amazing | D．discouraging |
8. | A．soared | B．ballooned | C．collapsed | D．fluctuated |
9. | A．suffered | B．avoided | C．subjected | D．weathered |
10. | A．band | B．ribbon | C．belt | D．string |
11. | A．popular | B．desirable | C．unusual | D．unwelcome |
12. | A．turn out | B．bring out | C．give out | D．work out |
13. | A．commanding | B．overwhelming | C．demanding | D．prevailing |
14. | A．above all | B．in addition | C．after all | D．in particular |
15. | A．self-improving | B．self-solving | C．self-sustaining | D．self-reflecting |
