U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

Genuine question-

How does Govt picking winners and losers going to help?

Intel is no Too big to fail Bank. Why save Intel of all chip manufacturers? Wouldnt it be like 25 years too late, with Intel and its heydays !?

Would Govt now ensure parity by investing in "marquee" entities across different industrial domains?

There is only 1 winner and 1 loser: Intel.

It's the only chip manufacturer "left" in the US. The argument is national security: the US expects China to invade Taiwan and this will kill TSMC in the process.

Whether this will happen or not can be debated, but this is what the government expects.

And now China knows the US expects this and it also knows the US does not expect to stop China, so China knows that it can expect the US to do very little. It's game theory turtles all the way down...

Edit: I think it's a misconception that China cares much about fabs in Taiwan. It wants unification.