<p>The contestation over the chip industry manifests power struggles and competition in the triangular relationship between the US, China, and Taiwan. The chip is vital for emerging technologies like AI, 5G, and other automation and computation industries. Dominating the chip industry and crippling China’s supply chain is one of the vital policies of the US, as evident in the Chips and Science Act 2022 enacted by the United States Congress. The semiconductor industry is relevant in maintaining America’s global hegemony. Dominating the semiconductor supply chain is vital for China’s emerging market and superpower ambitions. Therefore, semiconductors are a bone of contention in the ongoing tension between the US and China, especially over Taiwan. Control over semiconductor technology is also crucial to the regional and global ambitions of China and the US, especially in the context of new geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific. The chip industry is a ‘silicon shield balancer’ for Taiwan to balance its diplomatic relations with the US and China and strengthen its political autonomy and economic stability. Maintaining a strategic relationship with the US is key to Taiwan’s schemes to resist Chinese attempts to annex it. This article proposes to answer how and why the semiconductor industry is a balancer in the Taiwan-US-China triangularity and how it is crucial to Taiwan’s economy and political autonomy. These questions are answered in the context of new geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific, marked by the US-China rivalry and its impact on their relationship with Taiwan and vice versa. The insights of the theory of balancing are employed to answer these questions and the triangularity of the relationship. It is argued that the chip industry is an internal and external balancer to maintain its economic and political autonomy in its relationship with the US and China.</p>