Comment by nickpinkston

The difference is that only recently with the CHIPS Act did the US gov't put money to support strategic industries at large scale.

The US in its history after the 60's would invent a lot of core industrial tech, but then we'd let Japan, Germany, etc. actually commercialize because we didn't want to pick winners.

We invented CNC machining, SMT / pick-n-place for PCBs, industrial robot arms, etc., and these were all American dominated, but foreign countries supported homegrown companies long-term, and those American companies went bust.