Venture Beat reports a little disconcerting: 90% of U.S. semiconductor-grade neon comes from Ukraine which, as of this writing, is being invaded by Russia. Naturally, this is putting additional pressure on the supply chain that is already strained.

According to the article, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said “the semiconductor industry has a diverse set of key materials and gases, so we do not believe there are immediate supply disruption risks related to Russia and Ukraine.” Nevertheless, the long-term impact of the conflict remains unclear.

Demand for chips that specialize in artificial intelligence for machine learning training and inference is predicted to grow at over 50% annually across all computing categories, while the U.S. government has warned that the global chip supply chain remains weak. Among many other things, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is likely to make it more difficult to acquire raw materials to make these chips.

To reduce risks in the future, the House of Representatives put forward its version of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) with $52 billion in domestic semiconductor funding. Let’s hope it’s enough.

Read more here.