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Computer Chip Manufacturing in Jeopardy [View all]
South Korea is among the most exposed countries, which, according to the Korea International Trade Association, imported 64.7% of its helium from Qatar in 2025. The country relies heavily on helium imports to cool silicon wafers during fabrication and is understood to have no viable substitute.
Why are we in this situation?
The facility went offline on March 2 following drone strikes, removing approximately 30% of global helium supply from the market. QatarEnergy declared force majeure on existing contracts on March 4, freeing it from supply obligations to customers, and industry outlet Gasworld reported on March 7 that no imminent restart is planned.
Both Helium and Xeon are critical to the manufacturing of silicon wafers and there is no substitute.
I have written OPs on this general subject before but I think it's important to highlight this particular situation to draw attention to the fact that this is about A LOT more than oil and that seems to be all you hear in the news is "oil oil oil" when there is many, many other important things to our daily lives then just oil that is coming out of the ME.
What Israel has dragged us into is a living nightmare that has completely fucked the world.
Our leader is a spineless narcissistic pedophile and rapist, that is being led around by his nose by tyrannical fascists.
Reference:
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/qatar-helium-shutdown-puts-chip-supply-chain-on-a-two-week-clock
8 replies
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