So much of the focus of the past five years has been on artificial intelligence and its increasing role in society. Specific to electronics design and manufacturing, scores of companies are now involved in developing large language models and generative AI engines to power next-generation tools capable of synthesizing huge amounts of data and driving subsequent action.

According to Bloomberg, venture capitalists invested some $97 billion into artificial intelligence startups in the US alone in 2024. That’s about half of all the monies by US startups last year. Many of these technologies are unproven, however, and the companies’ founders have little or no track record of success bringing products to market or growing a profitable entity.

Does anyone feel like we are reliving the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s and early 2000s?

And it does make me wonder whether all the hype around AI is obfuscating other significant developments in the electronics space.

The many billions of dollars in direct funding or incentives the US Chips Act has bestowed on domestic manufacturers continue to obscure the basic adage that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

That truism was tested, again, in late November as Denkai America, the US-based subsidiary of the Japanese materials company, announced its intentions to close and liquidate its copper foil manufacturing plant in Augusta, South Carolina, the last such factory in the United States.

The news comes just two years after its parent company, Nippon Denkai, heralded the site as the future of foil production, with tens of millions of dollars in investments planned and hundreds of new jobs expected. The company cited financial problems stemming from semiconductor shortages, a decrease in exports of batteries manufactured domestically, lower demand for smartphones, and other factors for the decision.