https://learnorbis.com/blog Essays on history, power, and politics from the team behind Orbis: why the world looks the way it does, one story at a time. en https://learnorbis.com/blog/why-taiwan-makes-the-worlds-chips https://learnorbis.com/blog/why-taiwan-makes-the-worlds-chips Fri, 17 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT In 1985, Taiwan handed a sidelined American chip executive a blank check. Nearly every cutting-edge processor on Earth now comes from the company he built.