British microchip maker wants to raise £100m as it plans to leave the UK

US President Joe Biden has announced billions of dollars in subsidies in an attempt to attract technology manufacturing. Credit: MICHAEL REYNOLDS/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Mr White called Pragmatic's US expansion an «obvious» choice «because of both the customer base we already have and the size of that market and because of the benefits available under the Chip Act.”

< p>U.S. officials are disbursing billions of dollars in subsidies under the $280 billion (£217 billion) Joe Biden Chip Act Sterling) to persuade global chipmakers to relocate their operations to the US.

British ministers have pledged £1bn to the semiconductor industry over the next decade, a move that one industry executive described as «sluggish» when the ten-year plan was unveiled in May.

Pragmatic's fundraising campaign, which The The Telegraph first reported earlier this year it is seeking more than £100m to expand the company in the US.

«We're not going to raise 10 times that, but we will raise more in this round,» Mr. -n White.

Investment bank Lazard is advising on the project, which will nearly double the £148m the microchip company has raised since it was founded in 2010.

The company's current backers from Cambridge include the National Security Strategic Investment Fund, the UK chip giant and the CIA's investment arm In-Q-Tel.

This happened after the founder Pragmatic has been appointed to a government advisory group. on microchip strategy last week.

The Semiconductor Advisory Group was formed nearly two months after ministers pledged to introduce the organ at the London Tech Week event in June.

Industry sources expressed confusion as to why the commission, chaired by Business Secretary Paul Scully, was set up this way long.

1904 The production of microcircuits in the west is declining

Simon Thomas, a chip manufacturing executive who described the semiconductor strategy as «sluggish» in May, said: «While this is a month and a half later than the government promised, we are ready to support the panel. so they can provide a much-needed strong voice representing the entire sector.”

Mr. Thomas Paragraf is another British semiconductor business poised to jump ship to the US, as it applied for similar Chip Law subsidies. .

Pragmatic is the latest microchip maker to distance itself from the UK. In July, Arm chief executive René Haas said the company would be listing on Wall Street in response to Rishi Sunak, who tried to persuade it to list shares on the London Stock Exchange.

The UK chip strategy is targeting traditional UK strengths in chip design and development, not manufacturing.

Countries such as Taiwan and South Korea dominate the global silicon chip manufacturing sector.

Ministers hope for second success history such as Arm, the Cambridge-based company whose chips are now used in about 90 percent of today's smartphones.

The U.S. shift to land-based chip production is fueled by geopolitical concerns about Taiwan's future as an increasingly powerful China implements everything more and more large military exercises near the island.

Chinese leaders disagree that Taiwan is an independent nation-state, instead seeing it as a breakaway province to be returned to the mainland.