| Hi, it’s Drake in New York. The politics of Biden’s semiconductor strategy may take years to play out. But first... Three things you need to know today: • Apple is making progress on a more conversational digital assistant nicknamed “LLM Siri”
• The US urged a judge to unwind a deal between Google and AI company Anthropic
• Alibaba appointed a veteran executive to oversee its entire e-commerce operation As it heads into its final weeks, the Biden administration is racing to Trump-proof the massive industrial investment bills that could end up being a major part of its legacy. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Chips and Science Act together set aside trillions of dollars to invest in bridges, roads and other aging infrastructure; to subsidize green energy projects; and to create a domestic industry in advanced computer chip manufacturing. Voters didn’t see fit to reward Vice President Kamala Harris and her fellow Biden administration members for this ambitious legislative package. Donald Trump, for his part, publicly criticized parts of the program, telling podcaster Joe Rogan that the Chips Act was “so bad.” It stands to reason it’d be in danger, which may be why the Biden administration has just finalized two multibillion-dollar deals related to the program. Yet those investments are already starting to bear fruit. Highways are being repaired, wind farms going up, and chip factories are being built. The Taiwanese chip giant TSMC is building three fabs in Arizona. One has already shown it can function at a high level and is set to begin full production in early 2025. There’s a sense among Democrats that, to add insult to injury, it’s going to be Trump, not Biden, who gets credit for all of this investment — much of it in Republican-leaning parts of the country — as it begins bearing fruit in the coming years. Insofar as that means some photo ops at ribbon-cuttings, that will probably happen. Trump will presumably be happy to show up once those are scheduled. Not getting credit is an occupational hazard of electoral politics. But it’s also worth keeping in mind that, with things like the energy transition and the creation of a viable domestic semiconductor industry, we are still very far from our goals. With chip manufacturing, for example, “you won’t know for 10 years if you’ve succeeded,” says Willy Shih, a Harvard Business School professor specializing in manufacturing and supply chains. The process of awarding Chips Act funding and building plants has had its share of growing pains: labor disputes, shortages of workers with the right skills, and the ongoing troubles of Intel, which was expected to play a key role in the re-shoring of chipmaking. And even if all goes as planned, Shih points out, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. factories in Arizona are expected have less than a tenth of the capacity of the company’s factories in Taiwan even if they are completed as planned. Taiwan’s chip industry took years to rise to its current position of global dominance. In other words, if there is a manufacturing renaissance, the person who gets credit for it may be whoever is in office four or eight years from now. If Democrats want it to be one of their own, they know what they have to do. —Drake Bennett White-supremacist groups in the US and Canada are increasing their use of the social messaging app Telegram in an effort to recruit new members. Civil rights advocates and researchers say some of these groups, which portray themselves as independent, are coordinating their activities on the app. Instacart’s CEO says Wall Street undervalues the grocery delivery company. Paramount is promising to pay several executives $1 million retention bonuses tied to its pending merger with Skydance. Swedish battery maker Northvolt filed for bankruptcy, dealing another blow to Europe’s electric vehicle supply chain. | 
