They are an intellectual property company holding the rights on plans to make graphic cards, not even a company actually making graphic cards.
The government could launch an initiative "OpenGPU" or "OpenAI Accelerator", where the government orders GPUs from TSMC directly, without the middleman.
It may require some tweaking in the law to allow exception to intellectual property for "public interest".
Reflexively, I count that harm as a feature. I don't like private capital markets because I've been screwed by private capital on multiple occasions.
But you are right: I don't understand how these actions would harm. So please do expand your concerns.
private capital is absolutely the driving force for the vast majority of innovations since the beginning of the 20th century. public capital may be involved, but it is dwarfed by private capital markets.
Private nuclear research is heavily dependent on governmental contracts to function. Solar was subsidized to heck and back for years. Public investment does work, and does make a didference.
I would even say governmental involvement is sometimes even the deciding factor, to determine if research is worth pursuing. Some major capital investors have decided AI models cannot possibly gain enough money to pay for their training costs. So what do we do when we believe something is a net good for society, but isn’t going to be profitable?
One of the things that the post mentioned was the meager profit margin that the companies made during this time.
But the thing is that this set the America auto and aviation industry up to rule the world for decades.
A government going to a company and saying 'we need you to produce this product for us at a lower margin thab you'd like to' isn't the end of the world.
I don't know if this is one of those scenarios but they exist.
[0] https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-to-build-300000-a...