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Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

nytimes.com

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Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#61

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

baybal2 wrote: post #41
krapht wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People write this glibly without understanding history. Soviet Russia made great leaps in science and technology where it was a national priority. You can have academic freedom in most scientific disciplines without the political freedom to criticize the government.

>Soviet Russia made great leaps in science and technology Yes, we sent rockets to the moon, but an average Ivan couldn't have proper plumbing in his apartment. Those great leaps were made in things without real life value. P.R. China on other hand, can't be bothered with "prestige project." The only thing that can bother a government official here is money. And money undoubtedly have value in everyday life... unlike…

I want to pick at your “moon rovers” comment because I think it’s somewhat misguided (although, yes, it does apply specifically to Chinese government officials).

One of the reasons that the United States won the race to the moon (while definitively losing the race to space and manned space flight) was because we were the first to dump exorbitant sums of money into the hot (and extremely expensive) new kid on the computing block: integrated circuits.

Before ICs, computer parts were often hand-welded, which NASA determined was too failure-prone to reliably control the lunar lander, as such a device had to be able to handle shaking, cosmic radiation, temperature shifts, extreme G-forces from liftoff, and so on. For that same reason, the Soviets were also unable to complete a reliable lunar lander before the Americans, regardless of their past successes with spaceflight.

NASA’s immense investment in integrated circuits greatly accelerated their adoption, and as a result, computers became much faster, and much cheaper, than ever before.

The history of computing goes straight through the Apollo 11 lunar lander, which does not get nearly as much credit as it deserves.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#62

Post by tomcam »

RamshackleJ wrote: post #12
krapht wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People write this glibly without understanding history. Soviet Russia made great leaps in science and technology where it was a national priority. You can have academic freedom in most scientific disciplines without the political freedom to criticize the government.

TLDR; But the soviets lost. I'm not an expert in soviet history but I feel like their efforts around science and technology were economically unsustainable and almost all of them were directly or tangentially related to the military. I don't remember the soviets exporting consumer goods to the west. Academic freedom isn't the only freedom that scientists and engineers care about. I don't doubt that china can spend a…

Please explain downvotes?

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#63

Post by hangonhn »

RamshackleJ wrote: post #5
fermienrico wrote: post #2

Having worked in China in the semiconductor industry, it really saddens me what the Chinese are trying to do. You simply cannot out innovate 4 decades of work in a few years no matter how much money you throw at it. Also, China has a branding problem and it is only going to get worse. They can make short term progress but it takes a long time to build a great brand.

Stealing IP mostly helps manufacturing, It doesn't really help innovation. If they want to build up their semiconductor industry they need to steal the people who are creating IP, which is kinda the opposite of what is happening. the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule.

Not sure if you know but the American industrial revolution was largely kicked off with stolen IP from the UK and would later overtake it. I'm not trying to condone a wrong with another previous wrong but rather to point out that such methods can lead to something in the long run.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#64

Post by vkou »

chrchang523 wrote: post #54
forapurpose wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. helps to educate and provide opportunity to people, regardless of national origin - regardless of the arbitrary, invisible lines on a map, drawn by the powerful, in which they were born. Partly as a result, the greatest economic miracle in history has occurred since WWII (and especially since the end of the Cold War), with hundreds of millions of people pulled from millennia of hopeless, abject poverty. Anot…

I'm mostly with everything but the second half of your first sentence here, but unfortunately that embeds such a huge misconception that the net value of your comment could very well be negative unless you acknowledge and clarify/correct this. The boundaries of Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc. are "arbitrary [and] invisible" to some extent, and obviously drawn by the powerful. But "the current set of lines are…

> This is particularly clear for India, which is a natural US ally.

India has only become a natural US ally fairly recently... And largely due to the 'frenemy' status that the US has with China. (Which in itself is a consequence of the 'frenemy' status that the USSR had with China... It's turtles all the way down.)

Through much of the Cold War, US-India relationships were very, very cool. Instead, they had good relations with Russia, while the US had good relations with Pakistan.

There's nothing 'natural' about nation-state alignment. It's all political, and politics is capricious.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#65

Post by hangonhn »

RamshackleJ wrote: post #23
jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing IP definitely helps innovation. To get to the innovation stage you first need to reach parity. There is no faster way to reaching parity than to steal IP. As for the "the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule", that's nonsense that would have found an audience in the 1950's or so when talking about Russia, but it reall…

I disagree with your opinions and your characterization of my argument. I didn't say people will not think about technological problems. Despite the incredible amount of good the party has done for the people of china they are still an authoritarian regime. I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation.

A market based system and an authoritarian regime are not mutually exclusive. Singapore is very capitalistic but its political structure is basically a dictatorship. The same family has ruled it from the beginning. The Singapore model is very attractive to other countries who want to emulate the same. In fact, when Deng Xiaoping opened up China, Singapore was one of those places he visited and studied.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#66

Post by hangonhn »

lovich wrote: post #24
RamshackleJ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your opinions and your characterization of my argument. I didn't say people will not think about technological problems. Despite the incredible amount of good the party has done for the people of china they are still an authoritarian regime. I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation.

They've got such a large population they just need to concentrate a relatively small section where they have looser rules and it would work as an engine for them much like SF does for the US. Look at cities like Shenzhen

Precisely. This is why China started out with a few special economic zones with Shenzhen being the most successful example.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#67

Post by nimish »

History rhymes. American industrialists famously begged, borrowed and stole machine designs from Europe -- Slater the traitor kickstarted the American cotton industry.

Of course, the lack of foresight of Wall St is legendary! Many companies have traded long term loss for short term gain.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#68

Post by deepnotderp »

tzahola wrote: post #50
wishart_washy wrote: post #44

Notes from the ground here. My undergrad was in EE at an "elite" school - I can say definitively that ~50% of the MS/Ph.d. students in EE were from China (with the other 50% largely from India). They TA'd many of the graduate level courses and were the majority of the students taking high level semiconductor design courses that centered on fabrication and nanotechnology. China's short term goal is clearly to reach pa…

Well, if you EE guys would finally got off your high horses and dropped Verilog in favor of JavaScript, we wouldn’t have this kind of problem!!!

I know you're joking, but Verilog isn't really the best language...

I mean, it wasn't even made for chip synthesis.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#69

Post by deepnotderp »

tryptophan wrote: post #9
krapht wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People write this glibly without understanding history. Soviet Russia made great leaps in science and technology where it was a national priority. You can have academic freedom in most scientific disciplines without the political freedom to criticize the government.

Have any examples? As far as I am aware, the USSR only beat USA at getting into space first.

Soviet materials science was quite advanced. Mechanical engineering and weapons technology was also advanced.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#70

Post by deepnotderp »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #61
baybal2 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Soviet Russia made great leaps in science and technology Yes, we sent rockets to the moon, but an average Ivan couldn't have proper plumbing in his apartment. Those great leaps were made in things without real life value. P.R. China on other hand, can't be bothered with "prestige project." The only thing that can bother a government official here is money. And money undoubtedly have value in everyday life... unlike…

I want to pick at your “moon rovers” comment because I think it’s somewhat misguided (although, yes, it does apply specifically to Chinese government officials). One of the reasons that the United States won the race to the moon (while definitively losing the race to space and manned space flight) was because we were the first to dump exorbitant sums of money into the hot (and extremely expensive) new kid on the comp…

This ^^ 100x.

If it wasn't for integrated circuits, the u.s. likely would not have won the race. And it's not just because I'm a chip guy.

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