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Arm China Has Gone Rogue

semianalysis.substack.com

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Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#51

Post by monocasa »

syedkarim wrote: post #45
monocasa wrote: post #33

I'm not sure what anyone expected when we cut China off of chip IP. We did the same thing in the US, we had a policy of just straight up encouraging people to memorize patents before they immigrated over, and paying for their family to immigrate with them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater

I can understand the value of memorizing designs, plans, and technical drawings that are kept as proprietary information, but why bother memorizing a patent? Patents are public information and are only valid in the specific country granting the patent. Without additional local filings, foreign patents are not valid in America and vice versa.

Because Britain had a ban on exporting patents at the time and would search people leaving the country for patent documents, with jail time penalties.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#52

Post by jimbob45 »

barrkel wrote: post #5

This is the standard Chinese operating model, as I understand it. Accept foreign subsidiary investment on condition of 51% Chinese ownership, transfer the technology, then turn around and compete with the parent. It was a similar story with maglev trains.

This gets overblown a lot in the same way that we used to discredit Soviet scientific advancements by claiming they stole all the important bits from the Americans.

Yes, China does steal US technology and industry and yes, it has happened on a number of occasions with concrete documentation. However, that does not mean that China is not capable of innovation or shrewd business moves and it should not be assumed to be the norm.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#53

Post by cwizou »

dylan522p wrote: post #27
klelatti wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that it's not the 51% (and I think some of the 51% may be held by non Chinese investors) that has been key but rather Allen Wu having the seal - so even without control of the board he's still been able to get control of the company.

Author here, there is a Singaporean investor as well, but they have deep Chinese ties. I agree with your assessment. Allen Wu is an American citizen too, but loyal to China with deep CCP contacts.

Since you are the author, there's a near duplicated paragraph below the CPU/XPU pictures, the paragraphs starts with "Besides standing out and calling themselves".

Very interesting content otherwise, I remember the seal issue being something very controversial too when other companies went there (I believe it was regarding Intel, that was maybe 15 years ago). To this day it still is a pretty prevalent issue when doing local branches in China.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#54

Post by blacktriangle »

rayiner wrote: post #44

Western executives are in over their heads dealing with China. I don't think they even realized who was holding their leashes until China decided to start yanking on them a bit.

I know one shouldn't attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence, but in this case I think malice is where it's at. Western executives are not so dumb to think China will play nice with them. I've never met anybody whose spent more than 2 hours working with the Chinese who thinks they are remotely trustworthy. Western execs whole plan has been to pump short term numbers, cash in, and get out before the CCP pulls the rug out from under them.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#55

Post by vkou »

cm2187 wrote: post #23
klelatti wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of thing definitely has deterred investment in China. I was aware of it (in a very different industry) twenty years ago and it definitely affected decision making. It's impossible to track investments not made though.

To be honest it has now become politically toxic for a western company to announce a large investment in China.

It's financially toxic for them not to invest in the Chinese market.

Name a major American brand, and odds are you've named either someone who manufactures in China, sells to China, or more commonly, does both.

When it comes to optics or money, boards and investors will choose money.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#56

Post by rossdavidh »

klelatti wrote: post #18
rossdavidh wrote: post #17

So, I cannot see this sort of thing stopping, until we see a point where non-Chinese investors revolt when they hear about the company they've invested going into China, rather than cheering. If investors have had such a change of heart at this point, I have not seen it.

This sort of thing definitely has deterred investment in China. I was aware of it (in a very different industry) twenty years ago and it definitely affected decision making. It's impossible to track investments not made though.

Well that is a good point, it's the dog that didn't bark.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#57

Post by R0b0t1 »

rsj_hn wrote: post #49
comrade-hn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the most competitive products in some categories are from China, for example in drones. It's only a matter of time until they work their way up the chain. Remember the Tim Cook quote how it's difficult to fill a room with machinists in US, while in China you can fill 3 football fields with them.

That is confusing cause and effect. Because companies move their manufacturing operations to china it becomes harder to manufacture in the US. They did not initially move to China because of a lack of dometic skilled workers, but because of lower costs. The result of that move was, after a delay, the de-skilling of the US labor force, creating the lack of domestic skilled workers we have now. To recover from that wou…

It's not just a lack of domestic skilled workers. I'm not really sure there is much of a lack. It's just that US labor is so much more expensive compared to earning power. US workers can't pay other US workers.

Getting parts CNCed in China may be 10x less than the cost in the US, and materials are a tenth the cost as well (in small qty) as they haven't been transported yet. You can get roughly the same throughput in the US if you want to pay for it, but it will be vastly more expensive.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#58

Post by ayngg »

rayiner wrote: post #44

Western executives are in over their heads dealing with China. I don't think they even realized who was holding their leashes until China decided to start yanking on them a bit.

Western executives only care about getting paid, they don't need to care about geopolitics because they will have already offloaded their responsibilities before it matters.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#59

Post by anchpop »

PradeetPatel wrote: post #41
PopePompus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maximizing short term profits.

It has been established that the KPIs and bonuses of most corporate executives are tied to the quarterly returns. From their perspective, is there an incentive to maximize long term profit?

do corporate executives not get stock options? or at least typically plan to stay at the same company for more than a few quarters?

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#60

Post by mikkelam »

Isn’t it a matter of time before these licensed ISAs are dead anyway? With the advent of RISC-V is this really a problem?

Obviously this way of doing business is not acceptable though

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