Cisco’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chuck Robbins, believes the current shortage of computer chips will last all year.
Speaking to the BBC on the matter, he said: “We think we’ve got another six months to get through the short term. The providers are building out more capacity. And that’ll get better and better over the next 12 to 18 months.”
According to the report, in the early days of the pandemic, many companies cut their orders for chips, expecting the demand to dwindle. As a result, suppliers also reduced their output.
However, the exact opposite happened; the demand for consumer electronics actually skyrocketed during the pandemic.
While the shortage is mostly due to Covid-19 delaying semiconductor production, other factors have also played a role. For example, a huge spike in demand fueled by recent technological advances – in areas such as 5G, cloud computing, IoT and AI – has only aggravated problems.
“Right now, it is a big problem,” Robbins says, “because semiconductors go in virtually everything.”
Among the different companies trying to solve the chip shortage is Intel, which recently announced a $20bn plan to expand production, including erecting two new plants in Arizona.
