What If Semiconductors Stopped Working?

Picture an aerospace factory falling silent. CNC machines stop mid-cycle. Robots freeze. Digital inspection systems go dark, and computers can no longer process production data. Now look beyond the factory gates, to aircraft, communications, transport, energy infrastructure, the digital economy itself.

That is the scale of what one of the smallest technologies in modern life makes possible: the semiconductor.

Semiconductors provide the computing and control power behind almost every modern electronic system: inside smartphones and servers, but also aircraft avionics, communications, navigation, engine management, industrial automation, machine tools, robotics and inspection equipment.

At ASG Aerospace, that dependence is visible everywhere across the factory floor.

"Take semiconductors away from an advanced manufacturing environment and you quickly appreciate how fundamental they have become," said Zack Kirkman, Technical Manager at ASG AMF. "The CNC machines producing complex aerospace components depend on them. Our control systems, sensors, metrology equipment, automation and computing infrastructure depend on them. They are an enabling technology behind the technologies we use every day."

The relationship runs both ways. Alongside the machines that depend on semiconductors, ASG also manufactures the ultra-high-vacuum chambers at the heart of the equipment that makes semiconductor wafers, precision environments where a single particle of dust can compromise years of work.

That dependence has pushed semiconductors to the centre of a much bigger conversation: UK digital sovereignty.

The UK Government calls semiconductors fundamental to the economy, national security and modern life, underpinning everything from AI and telecoms to space and defence. Their importance is only growing as artificial intelligence drives demand for advanced computing hardware. In June, the Government committed £1.1 billion to a new AI Hardware Plan: £750 million for a national AI supercomputer, £400 million for next-generation AI chips.

The goal isn't just more computing capacity: it's ensuring Britain keeps meaningful capability in technologies becoming central to its economic and industrial future.

"Digital sovereignty is about capability, knowledge and resilience," Kirkman said. "The UK operates within highly sophisticated international supply chains, and those partnerships are incredibly valuable. At the same time, developing our own expertise in strategically important technologies gives Britain greater technological agency. For aerospace and advanced manufacturing, having that capability strengthens the industrial ecosystem around us."

The semiconductor supply chain is a case study in how interconnected advanced manufacturing has become: a single chip can shape the operation of a multi-million-pound machine tool, an automated production cell, or systems aboard some of the world's most sophisticated aircraft. As manufacturing turns increasingly digital, that relationship only tightens.

Across ASG Aerospace, investment in multi-axis CNC machining, automation, robotics, metrology and digitally-enabled production reflects how tightly traditional engineering excellence and computing technology are already interwoven, a connection that artificial intelligence will only deepen further. Predictive maintenance, adaptive manufacturing, machine vision, automated inspection and increasingly intelligent production systems all run on computing power at their foundation.

"The physical and digital worlds of engineering aren't converging. They're already inseparable," Kirkman added. "The next generation of manufacturing will combine mechanical engineering expertise with data, automation, AI and increasingly intelligent machines. Semiconductors sit underneath much of that capability."

Britain already holds internationally recognised strengths in semiconductor design, intellectual property, compound semiconductors, photonics and research. Government policy now focuses on turning more of that strength into technology that can be developed, demonstrated, deployed and scaled at home, with international partnerships, including growing cooperation with Japan on semiconductors, AI and other frontier technologies, forming another pillar of that strategy.

The ambition is technological agency: Britain having the expertise, relationships and industrial capability to shape the technologies its future depends on.

Semiconductors may be among the smallest components in modern industry, but they enable some of its largest and most sophisticated systems, aerospace among them, but far from alone. Ask what would happen if they stopped working, and the answer reaches well past any one factory floor: to an economy, a national security posture, a way of life now run on computing power.

That is why strengthening Britain's capability around them is becoming an essential part of securing the country's industrial future, for aerospace, and for everything else that now depends on the same small chip