Learn about Pax Silica, a $4 trillion investment initiative by the Trump administration to boost semiconductor, energy, and critical resource supply chains with global partners.
© whitehouse.gov
The Trump administration has announced the launch of a major investment initiative called Pax Silica, aimed at attracting up to $4 trillion for developing the semiconductor industry, energy, and extraction of critical resources. The project is envisioned as an international consortium involving allied countries and major investment funds.
In the first phase, the United States plans to invest $250 million in the initiative and take charge of coordinating fund distribution. Key participants already named include SoftBank, Singapore's Temasek, and Abu Dhabi's Mubadala, along with sovereign wealth funds from several countries, including Singapore, the UAE, Qatar, and Sweden. Collectively, these partners manage assets exceeding a trillion dollars, which should provide a foundation for scaling up the project further.
Pax Silica covers the entire semiconductor supply chain—from mining rare earth metals and processing them to manufacturing equipment, chips, and deploying AI infrastructure. Special attention is given to ensuring that key elements of this chain—raw materials, logistics, energy, and production capacity—remain under the control of allied nations. Thirteen countries are already involved, including Japan, South Korea, Israel, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and India.
Geopolitical risks have provided additional motivation for expanding the project. For instance, disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz during the conflict with Iran highlighted the vulnerability of global logistics routes. In Washington, there is a view that infrastructure—from ports to cables—could become targets of pressure in future conflicts, necessitating diversification and protection of supply chains.
However, the stated $4 trillion figure has raised questions among analysts. For comparison, total global foreign direct investment last year was around $1.6 trillion, and the U.S. contribution at the outset represents only a fraction of a percent of the stated goal. Nevertheless, the initiative itself reflects growing competition for control over resources and technologies, especially against the backdrop of China's restrictions on exporting rare earth materials, which are crucial for producing modern electronics.