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US Intel

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Re: US Intel

#301

Post by budududuroiu »

Diog wrote: post #51

To be honest, for most Chinese people, the reason we haven't taken action regarding Taiwan is not because of TSMC, but rather our patience with the current will of the Taiwan people. However, this patience has its limits. Even if TSMC has better chips now, China mainland will surpass them next 10 years. You can compare the gap in chip technology between Chinese companies in 2015 and that projected for 2025 to see thi…

> this patience has its limits

Without going into the lack of military capabilities to mount the largest amphibious invasion post-WW2 up until recently (debatable), I think you’d be hard pressed to find a group of people in the world that would be excited at the idea of being put under foreign occupation (not dissimilar to the “excitement” the Taiwanese had to be occupied by the Republic of China after WW2).

Regardless, TSMC wouldn’t survive annexation Taiwan being annexed by China in any capacity

Re: US Intel

#302

Post by Agingcoder »

I’m not sure why what he's saying is so outlandish to many ( at least to some of the papers he’s quoting ): we’re in a world which looks increasingly like the cold war all over again, and my immediate reaction when I saw the headline was ‘ah yes China this makes sense’. We’re not talking private capital - it’s national interests being pushed, for long term reasons, and probably a bit late.

Now I’m European so this seems obvious to me, coming from a culture of high government intervention but I might be very wrong!

Re: US Intel

#303

Post by snapcaster »

jimmydoe wrote: post #116

So the gist is to make Intel the Huawei but for US&A

The problem with that is that Huawei makes world leading products in a lot of categories and Intel's remaining dominance is slipping. I don't see how this stake impacts any of that

Re: US Intel

#304

Post by onetimeusename »

cpuguy83 wrote: post #293
onetimeusename wrote: post #189

The other day when the US's stake in Intel was announced, people assumed it was a political stunt. I suspected it was because of national security interests. The CHIPS act probably didn't get the result US Defense wanted quickly enough. Some details that were glossed over include that there was a chip shortage a few years ago as a result of COVID and TSMC supply chain disruptions that led to a shortage in electronics…

I mean obviously it's about chip production, but shitting on the chips act is a political stunt and nothing more. Building fabs takes lots of money and time. Intel also doesn't have customers except themselves and have fallen far behind in the fab business and has a decade+ or mistakes to make up for. What we have here is picking a winner and potentially insider trading/market manipulation with Trump shitting on Inte…

That was what I was arguing against. It seems like people cannot stop themselves from making this about Trump. I guess he does that himself though. The problem with saying he was shitting on the CHIPS Act is that Biden himself didn't even pay out the money. It's because Intel made no progress on the fab. It's pretty clear behind both Biden and Trump is a desire to have Intel's foundry working. With Intel making no progress on it, I am assuming the call to take a stake in Intel was done to mitigate all the benchmarks Intel said they would make but failed to do. Perhaps the government figured they could pass the money to Intel without giving up the reigns this way. Either way, I am very convinced there is a national security motive under all of this and neither Trump nor Biden went down this path to grandstand on it.

Re: US Intel

#305

Post by pests »

lovich wrote: post #280
dfxm12 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is clear that the government and wall street are generally of one mind on this. One recent specific way the government contributed to this is via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, which increased tax burden of R&D. They've also cut a lot of their own research funding (NIH, NSF). I can't make the argument that the government is "hands off, small government" because I simply don't see the evidence of that. T…

Taking 10% of Intel. Intel was already supposed to get this money and then retroactively were told to give up 10% for it

FWIW, in exchange for less restrictions on what they do with the money and less strict clawback terms.

Re: US Intel

#306

Post by tkel »

mrcwinn wrote: post #294
monknomo wrote: post #121

the president unilaterally extorting 10% ownership out of a company isn't going to build the kind of system that competes with anyone. Big business can't really thrive under this kind of thing any more than corner stores can thrive under a protection racket.

Why take issue with Trump alone then? Go ask Bernie Sanders. This is a peak at what socialism looks like in America. The country taking a stake is the people taking a stake. Strange bedfellows, perhaps, but anyone far anti-Trump should actually take this as a model of sorts.

I read all of Bernie's platform in 2016 when it was most thoroughly developed, and he didn't call for state ownership of companies like Intel. The closest he got to what you are thinking was calling for public ownership of utilities, which is standard in most capitalist countries, namely buying out/converting private electricity utility monopolies into either public or cooperative ownership.

Also, socialism means whatever the ruling class says it means. For example in China they've redefined socialism to just mean nationalism, which is the opposite of the original intent. Read about "Xi Jingping Thought" and "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics". It seems when ideas like socialism become popular, they are co-opted and stripped of meaning.

Re: US Intel

#307

Post by simne »

I really wonder, why so much noise about this case. I agree, semiconductors are extremely important in current world, but did you know, Volkswagen AG is partially owned by State of Lower Saxony (~ 11.8%)?

Also worth to remember cases of Rolls-Royce, Ericsson, and some other unfortunate Western companies, important for many humans, but once became unable to stay economically viable. (BTW it make me laugh, when I got info, Bentley now under WAG, when RR under BMW, as technically, they many decades was one entity)

WAG case is different from Intel case (and other I mention), but there are also many similarities, because of which I think, Intel case may be special for US, but is not too special for West.

And I think, such cases are bad, they are great shame, but also they are signs, we must do something, to make Western produced semiconductors more competitive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group

Re: US Intel

#308

Post by bdangubic »

simne wrote: post #307

I really wonder, why so much noise about this case. I agree, semiconductors are extremely important in current world, but did you know, Volkswagen AG is partially owned by State of Lower Saxony (~ 11.8%)? Also worth to remember cases of Rolls-Royce, Ericsson, and some other unfortunate Western companies, important for many humans, but once became unable to stay economically viable. (BTW it make me laugh, when I got i…

we must do something, to make Western produced semiconductors more competitive.

and letting Federal Government in on this is sure to make this happen - just like everything else being ran by the Federal Government

Re: US Intel

#310

Post by mathiaspoint »

throwup238 wrote: post #178
makestuff wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah seeing the innovations DJI is making in agriculture makes me wonder why VCs do not want to fund other startups like it. I know the margins are worse and it takes way more capital to fund hardware companies, but that has to be better than funding another chat-gpt wrapper. I guess that is why I am not a VC though lol.

The infrastructure to rapidly iterate and manufacture just isn’t here anymore, so everything costs significantly more to the point where we’re noncompetitive. Even VCs with no experience see the top line numbers for hardware startups and nope out. Contrast this with biotech venture capital which has been doing well for decades, often investing more capital in a year than software VCs. The difference is that all the r…

There isn't even anyone here competing with eg JLCPCB just for PCBs let alone all the other prototyping stuff. It makes sense, somehow China is able to do it for less than the materials cost.

I think that's why most people just aren't that upset about tariffs. It would be nice to be able to participate in our own economy other than by grifting off real estate or software.

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