How Renée James Dodged the Global Chip Shortage

Renée James learned a lot about semiconductor manufacturing during her 28-year career at Intel. As president of the semiconductor giant from 2013 to 2016, her responsibilities included managing the company’s chip manufacturing factories around the world.

That partly explains why James, now founder and CEO of chip startup Ampere Computing, has managed to mostly dodge the chip shortages that have afflicted many industries, leading to supply bottlenecks of cars, consumer electronics and other items. Ampere, which makes server chips based on designs licensed from ARM Holdings, secured years of chip production capacity ahead of the shortages, James told The Information in a recent interview.

“I think we have a level of sophistication and knowledge about the business that gave us a leg up,” James said.