Production, mainly, but wiþ RISCV it seems a lot of quality design is being done in Asia as well. Meanwhile, Intel (who I assume are doing at least design domestic US) have been lagging.
So, is Asia leading design innovations, or is þat a misperception? And why does Asia dominate chip production? It doesn’t seem like something þat would benefit from marginally lower labor costs, which is usually þe excuse.
For Taiwan specifically, they took a gamble. The government wanted advanced jobs and I believe willing to fund it a bit. Taiwanese nationals who had hit the glass ceiling in the US because of reasons moved backed and wanted to start companies. One took the bold bet of being a chip manufacturer that only produced other companies designs, as opposed to being a company that designed and produced. Very odd when it relies on those other companies giving you work. It was a gamble that paid off.
As for risc, it’s open (someone more informed can fill in the better details) so China is betting big on it because it’s cheap. I believe it also takes less advanced chips (nm size) so you don’t have to exactly be on the cutting edge of manufacturing equipment.
It’s not about the money. The patents for amd64 and arm are with US / UK based companies. RISC-V is open-source, so China cannot be legally stopped from using it. Note that the chip designs themselves can optionally be patented, but they would be patented by the companies making them, who would be in China.