Nanotronics CEO Matthew Putman runs an outfit which a system, called Cubefabs, combines its modular inspection tools and other equipment with AI, allowing the proposed chip factories to monitor themselves and adapt accordingly.

Putman calls this an "autonomous factory" where the bulk of the facility can be preassembled, flat-packed and put in shipping containers so that the facilities can be built "in 80 per cent of the world."

Eventually, the company envisions hundreds of its fabs worldwide, starting with a prototype in New York or Kuwait that it hopes to start building by the end of the year.

Nanotronics says a single Cubefab installation could start at one acre with a single fab, and grow to a four-fab, six-acre footprint. The company says each fab could be built in under a year, with a four-fab installation estimated to cost under $100 million. Nanotronics declined to disclose how much it has raised for the project. Still, Putman says the company has previously raised $170 million from investors, including Peter Thiel and Jann Tallin, the Skype cofounder..

A single automated Cubefab will need only about 30 people to operate, "and they don't have to be semiconductor experts," says Putman. "AI removes that need for that specialisation that you would normally need in a fab."

Putman thinks automation will help further reduce the environmental impact of an industry that's notoriously resource-intensive and produces tons of waste a year, much of it hazardous.

"Because you have the AI fixing the material and the device before it's manufactured, you have less waste of the final material," he said.