Tom Cassauwers

HSINCHU - Microchips are at the heart of our digital world. Without them, our smartphones and laptops do not work, our cars fall silent and the internet crashes. So it comes as no surprise that car factories are halting production due to a global chip shortage, China and the US are fighting a trade war over chips, and the European Union is investing billions in the chip industry.

ANTWERP - 5G promises to become the infrastructure of the future. For example, the new, fifth generation of mobile internet would be up to one hundred times faster than 4G, and will provide a platform on which new technology is built. The most innovative things, from remote operations to autonomous vehicles, will become possible via 5G. But our mobile internet is also increasingly becoming a critical infrastructure around which many conflicts are emerging. Today, we fear that the Chinese are bugging us with 5G, that its radiation is giving us cancer, that 5G is being rolled out too slowly in our country and even that it will cause our companies to close down.