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“On national security grounds”...? Why would NVidia, a US corp, be more of a security problem than a Japanese one? If it’s just a matter of commercial overreliance on a single supplier, I find the “National security” bit to be somewhat specious.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sceptical about that - we don't own much technology IP and we're hugely reliant on the US already. I think it's a much more specific security issue.
I think that the capability to design a modern CPU is pretty essential for future defence independence. I think that ARM represents a good chunk of the UKs claim to be able to do that. If the UK wants a share of future US programs of all sorts then it needs to be able to make these claims - or face must less generous terms.
I'm not sure about the second point but it seems premised on withholding IP from US which seems unlikely.
Much more likely that there is intense collaboration between say GCHQ and Arm (maybe both ways -> GCHQ gets to understand modern CPU security issues from Arm and Arm benefits from GCHQ input on threats). If that relationship swaps to NSA then there would be real damage to UK security apparatus.
https://www.nextplatform.com/2021/04/12/nvidia-enters-the-ar...
Also nvidia will build a new system in switzerland with 20 Exaflops (albeit fp16) which would be the fastest ML/AI system so far.
https://www.marktechpost.com/2021/04/16/nvidias-novel-cpu-gr...
FTA: With the help of tight coupling between NVIDIA CPUs and GPUs, Alps is expected to train GPT-3, the world’s largest natural language processing model, in mere two days.
They blatantly ought to have done this for the original sale. Better late than never, I suppose.
I understand objecting, but for security reasons? A better argument would be that Nvidia gains serious power over companies who are currently ARM customer and Nvidia competitors. Perhaps the UK want to be able to use ARM designs for domestic chips in the future, without being dependent on an American company, but yeah, then they should have objected when a Japanese company bought ARM as well.
They blatantly ought to have done this for the original sale. Better late than never, I suppose.
I understand objecting, but for security reasons? A better argument would be that Nvidia gains serious power over companies who are currently ARM customer and Nvidia competitors. Perhaps the UK want to be able to use ARM designs for domestic chips in the future, without being dependent on an American company, but yeah, then they should have objected when a Japanese company bought ARM as well.
Also, as others have noted, it's quite possible that GHCQ has backdoors into ARM designs that would be jeopardized.
But despite being owned by Softbank, Arm Ltd. is still incorporated in the UK and has their headquarters there. If chip design is seen as a essential national capability, the national security argument is valid regardless, in my opinion.
To me this seems to be a reaction to the announcement of nvidia to build a one-in-all HPC system. Nvidia already owns Mellanox for the Infiniband Network and their GPUs are the fastest on the market. Now with an additional CPU in their portfolio they could provide a complete Supercomputer in one piece. Think about a HPC-SOC. Supercomputers are still a matter of national security. https://www.nextplatform.com/2021/04/…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand objecting, but for security reasons? A better argument would be that Nvidia gains serious power over companies who are currently ARM customer and Nvidia competitors. Perhaps the UK want to be able to use ARM designs for domestic chips in the future, without being dependent on an American company, but yeah, then they should have objected when a Japanese company bought ARM as well.
> but for security reasons? Seems to be the strongest/easiest route to go to justify blocking it. The whole national security angle and all. > then they should have objected when a Japanese company bought ARM as well I have to imagine this was a bit of sleeping at the wheel. I'm not sure though.
What makes you think so?
So Intel - US / TSMC - Taiwan can be considered as national security, but ARM not?
“On national security grounds”...? Why would NVidia, a US corp, be more of a security problem than a Japanese one? If it’s just a matter of commercial overreliance on a single supplier, I find the “National security” bit to be somewhat specious.
It is prudent for the world we are ushering into. I do not blame them. The world in which ARM was bought by SoftBank is different literally and figuratively.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand objecting, but for security reasons? A better argument would be that Nvidia gains serious power over companies who are currently ARM customer and Nvidia competitors. Perhaps the UK want to be able to use ARM designs for domestic chips in the future, without being dependent on an American company, but yeah, then they should have objected when a Japanese company bought ARM as well.
It's in line with recent behavior toward e.g. Huawei and 5G. What's interesting here is that Softbank is a Japanese company, but reading the government announcement you'd think it may as well be Chinese. It would be interesting to see the UK explain to Japan, somewhat of an ally, why its company is a national security threat.
They blatantly ought to have done this for the original sale. Better late than never, I suppose.
They were too scared of looking 'closed for business' in the middle of the disaster that was/is Brexit.
I think we are on transition slogan number 3, quite the compensation to being cut off from your customers for many businesses I'm sure.
Edit: Is the HN hive telling me Brexit is a good thing then?