What tech bosses have said about the global impact of chip shortages

Semiconductor shortages have held back production of electronics during the pandemic

Tech bosses have been addressing the global shortage of computer chips in recent weeks, which has hit companies and production hard during the pandemic.

Less demand for electronics at the start of the pandemic left production of computer chips lagging behind when that demand eventually rocketed later on.

There are a host of other factors behind the shortages too - from extreme weather to a factory fire in Japan, while Huawei blamed the US for sanctions it had imposed.

The global shortage led US president Joe Biden to sign an executive order aimed at easing the impact on a range of industries including tech, healthcare and motor.

Predictions from tech bosses and researchers are that the dearth of semiconductors will last until at least the end of the year, possibly into 2022, with Gartner advising tech companies to adopt certain measures to cope with the issue.

Meanwhile the boss of one of the UK's largest distributors, Exertis, recently said supply issues are a geater threat to the channel than any shortage of demand and represent one of the biggest challenges of the year.

Here is what the tech bosses of some of the world's biggest tech companies have had to say on the impact of the shortages:

Cisco

Commentator: Chuck Robbins, CEO

Quote: "Right now, it's a big problem," he told the BBC.

"Now we think it may be exacerbated because customers were afraid or placing multiple orders. There's so much demand in the system because they're trying to get ahead of it.

"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, we think.

"Semiconductors go in virtually everything and what happened is when COVID hit I think everyone thought the demand side was going to decline significantly and in fact we saw the opposite.

"All of the manufacturers like us and car manufacturers and everyone sent lower demand signals to the providers of semiconductors. They then reduced their capacity and at the same time demand went up instead.

"It was a complete shock to many of us."

Key takeaway: Chip shortages will last another six months at least.

Intel

Commentator: Pat Gelsinger, CEO

Quote: "We have a couple of years until we catch up to this surging demand across every aspect of the business.

"COVID showed that the global supply chain of chips is fragile and unable to react quickly to changes in demand.

"And anybody who looks at supply chain says, ‘that's a problem,'. This is a big, critical industry and we want more of it on American soil: the jobs that we want in America, the control of our long-term technology future."

Key takeaway: Gelsinger wants production of chips to increase in the US and has announced that Intel will spend $20bn to build two new chip factories in Arizona.

Dell

Commentator: Michael Dell, CEO

Quote: "The shortage will probably continue for a few years. Even if chip factories are built all over the world it takes time," he told German newspaper Handelsblatt.

"We are talking, in particular, about components that are in the $1 range and are used practically everywhere.

"But even newer technologies are not easy to come by."

Key takeaway: Dell went further than most of his counterparts in his prediction of how long the shortages will last, stating it will be a few years until things are back to normal.

IBM

Commentator: Jim Whitehurst, president

Quote: "There's just a big lag between from when a technology is developed and when [a fabrication plant] goes into construction and when chips come out.

"So frankly, we are looking at couple of years… before we get enough incremental capacity online to alleviate all aspects of the chip shortage.

"We're going to have to look at reusing, extending the life of certain types of computing technologies, as well as accelerating investment in these [fabricating plants] to be able to as quickly as possible get more capacity online."

Key takeaway: Whitehurst supports Gelsinger's sentiment that more investment must be put in chip production while estimating that it will take a couple of years for shortages to ease completely.

HP

Commentator: Enrique Lores, CEO

Quote: "It's the strain of the demand that we are seeing, both for PCs and for printers," he told CNBC in February.

"The PC market this year is going to be 45 per cent bigger than the projection we made only 18 months ago. For many of the component suppliers it is very hard to respond fast to that demand.

"We think it's going to take at least three more quarters because as you have heard from other industries, there is very strong demand for components.

"We are driving that from PCs, there are other technology sectors that are driving that as well and even sectors outside technology are also strengthening the demand for electronic components."

Key takeaway: Lores was sympathetic towards chip suppliers because of the demand they are facing and summarised just how much strain has been put on them over the past year.

AMD

Commentator: Lisu Su, CEO

Quote: "The entire semiconductor supply chain is very, very tight.

"I think you hear that from all of our peers in the marketplace. That being said, we've been working very closely with our supply chain partners.

"We're going to continue to work on that because right now, I would say the channel - the inventories are very low throughout the entire supply chain, whether you talk about at our customers or in the channels. And so there's quite more that we would like to be able to do."

Key takeaway: Su was open about the big challenges facing the channel because of shortages but stressed that the chip supplier was trying to alleviate the problem.