Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger (L) and Intel Factory Manager Hugh Green (R) watch as US President Joe Biden (C) looks at a semiconductor wafer during a tour at Intel Ocotillo Campus in Chandler, Arizona, this week. The White House unveiled almost $20 billion in new grants and loans Wednesday to support Intel's US chip-making facilities.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger (L) and Intel Factory Manager Hugh Green (R) watch as US President Joe Biden (C) looks at a semiconductor wafer during a tour at Intel Ocotillo Campus in Chandler, Arizona, this week. The White House unveiled almost $20 billion in new grants and loans Wednesday to support Intel's US chip-making facilities. / AFP via Getty Images

President Biden just awarded $8.5 billion dollars to the company Intel to help fund semiconductor factories in Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico, and Oregon.

At a visit to Intel's campus outside Phoenix this week, President Biden said the money will help semiconductor manufacturing make a comeback in the US after 40 years.

The money for Intel comes from the $ 9 billion set aside by the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, to build chip factories. The administration's goal? For 20% of the world's leading-edge semiconductor chips to be made on American soil by 2030.

The US currently makes zero of the world's leading-edge semiconductor chips. By 2030, the Biden administration wants to make A FIFTH of them. So how will America get there?

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.