Big Tech companies are rapidly ramping demand for microchips amid the AI buildout. The global tech industry could be the latest to be hit by a protracted conflict in the Middle East, with fresh pressures on semiconductor supply chains potentially hampering the artificial intelligence boom.

Kayley Waltz reflected in a silicon wafer at the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering in Baltimore. Sometime in the next 15 years, the same technology that produced the world's first photograph will allow us to make the most powerful, densely packed silicon microchips allowed by physics.