Some materials, like air and water, are easily seen and felt and keenly noticed in their absence. Other substances are just as ubiquitous but more hidden and easily taken for granted – until they’re scarce. Take computer chips, for example, the processing and memory units that are the engines for everything from personal computers, smartphones and washing machines to electric toothbrushes, refrigerators and cars. “I imagine there are more than 100 billion chips in daily use around the world,” notes Matteo Rinaldi, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northeastern University. One trillion chips were fabricated globally in 2020 alone, according to the European Union.  But lately the process of producing more chips to meet ever-growing demand and new technologies has hit multiple snags. Demand for chips exceeded supply even before the pandemic, and when much of the world economy shut down during the pandemic, so did factories, holding up delivery of the supplies needed for chip manufacturing. With the pandemic came an explosive surge in demand for devices and their components, with home-bound people using more tablets, phones and other electronics than ever before, far exceeding what manufacturers could provide. Port closures and labor shortages produced shipping bottlenecks. Companies like Nissan, General Motors and Apple subsequently noted the negative impact of chip shortages on their manufacturing and sales performance, while Ford Motor Company reported a loss of $3.1 billion over the three months preceding April 2022. Car maker Audi and its parent company Volkswagen stripped Invidia tire pressure display, wireless charging pads and other chip-reliant features from certain models. Hoarding amplified the disruption. Similar to nervous grocery store shoppers, manufacturers stockpiled computer chips during the pandemic, preempting the “just in time” manufacturing model favored by companies that order parts as close to...