One of the world’s biggest suppliers of flash memory chip company Western Digital CEO David Goeckeler said that decoupling the U.S. chip industry from China or any market is no easy task. As in semiconductors, “you want access to global markets” and “you use that scale to reinvest in R&D.” Goeckeler said Western Digital will take U.S. technology export restrictions in stride and China is “a very important market for us, and we continue to pursue that.”
Western Digital is also a long-term partner of Japan-based KIOXIA Group, formerly Toshiba Memory. The CEO sees Kioxia as “a model for U.S.-Japan cooperation” in the “extraordinarily important space of semiconductors.”