Similar to watching Intel scalp the entire industry, I don't think the US government cares who is in the lead, as long as that company is in their pocket. Apple's move to leapfrog the industry was smart, but also calls into question how actually efficient the chip is. If you compare the Apple A12z (their 7nm predecessor to the M1), to Intel's 7nm offerings, the performance starts weighing a lot closer in Intel's favor. In SIMD benchmarks, Intel can be 10-100x faster than ARM's NEON stopgap.
In other words, I'm really curious what the landscape will look like once Apple, Intel and AMD are all on the same node. I reckon x86 still has some life in it yet, a processor with AMD's IPC enhancements and Intel's process enhancements would cleanly smoke the ARM competition. It just remains to be seen if Intel or AMD will be the first to get there...
I don’t know if their position is quite so secure as Intel’s used to be.
Production can continue to scale up, and there’s massive spending to increase US capability due to the Taiwan situation. Apple obviously still have the money to throw around but I’m sure TSMC want to tread incredibly carefully here with regards to making their products available to more customers. Being an Apple-exclusive fab is lucrative in the short term but encourages your other customers to look for supply elsewhere, which is an existential risk to your dominance.
In other words, I'm really curious what the landscape will look like once Apple, Intel and AMD are all on the same node. I reckon x86 still has some life in it yet, a processor with AMD's IPC enhancements and Intel's process enhancements would cleanly smoke the ARM competition. It just remains to be seen if Intel or AMD will be the first to get there...