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How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips

#51

Post by Herring »

mk89 wrote: post #33
darkamaul wrote: post #5

I'd argue ASML's moat isn't the machine itself but the ecosystem: Carl Zeiss optics, decades of supplier relationships, institutional knowledge. This is clearly a significant achievement, but does anyone with semiconductor experience have a sense of how far "generates EUV light" is from "production-ready tool"?

They are "extracting" optical devices from other machines, imagine how desperate they are for this "machine". As I ironically said in another comment, all you need is a retired Chinese ex employee at Zeiss. Nothing can stay private or secret forever, and they have the money and people to achieve that. Even if it takes them another 5 years to reach what we have today.

I bet the ex employee doesn't even have to be Chinese. I'm not, but get me FAANG-level salaries and decent working hours I'll 你好 all you want.

Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips

#52

Post by coliveira »

rootusrootus wrote: post #47
coliveira wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general trend of the industry is to move computational resources from the hands of users into data centers, so that they can control what can be done and how much they'll charge for computational services. In the medium term, a lot of what we take for granted nowadays will only be accessible from cloud providers and companies will pay more and more in subscriptions for these services.

How will that work, exactly? The chip makers are going to have a list of approved "cloud providers" and they will refuse to sell to anyone else?

Cloud providers will use cheap investment capital to buy chips at increasing prices, while the public will be economically forced to get computational services from these cloud providers. After a few years, most software will work only when connected to cloud infrastructure, either for performance or for "safety" reasons. We're already seeing this with AI.

Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips

#53

Post by filloooo »

georgeburdell wrote: post #13

The knowledge came from former ASML employees. I wonder if countries will sanction these individuals given the geopolitical implications of their assistance.

Handing out sanctions without at least a plausible legal cover, sounds like a recipe for disaster that would come back to bite.

I wonder what could be used here, non-compete? IP infringement? Or doing it "for all mankind"?

As for knowledge, the YouTube channel Branch Education explained EUV lithography in great detail, sponsored by ASML itself.

My impression is that the knowledge is not that secretive, the precision required at every step is the key.

Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips

#54

Post by [deleted] »

rootusrootus wrote: post #47
coliveira wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general trend of the industry is to move computational resources from the hands of users into data centers, so that they can control what can be done and how much they'll charge for computational services. In the medium term, a lot of what we take for granted nowadays will only be accessible from cloud providers and companies will pay more and more in subscriptions for these services.

How will that work, exactly? The chip makers are going to have a list of approved "cloud providers" and they will refuse to sell to anyone else?

[deleted]

Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips

#55

Post by bgnn »

darkamaul wrote: post #5

I'd argue ASML's moat isn't the machine itself but the ecosystem: Carl Zeiss optics, decades of supplier relationships, institutional knowledge. This is clearly a significant achievement, but does anyone with semiconductor experience have a sense of how far "generates EUV light" is from "production-ready tool"?

They are nowhere close to beat ASML.

This isn't a moat ASML can keep for long though. There can be alternatove technologies to achieve the same goal. So far only China has that incentive. The real problem is process scaling is slowing down. How many more generations of lithography machines will ASML design? Probably not many. This means there will be no edge left in 5 or 10 years, as eventually brute force will work and China will achieve the same lithography resolution.

Till that point, they are just going all in with cheap coal + solar, so even if they use older machines and run longer exposure times, even if they achieve lower yields and toss away a lot of the dies, they are still economically competitive. At the end cheap enery solves a lot of the issues.

Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips

#56

Post by nitwit005 »

A "Manhattan Project" would be building some shocking new technology that didn't previously exist.

If they're cobbling together old parts, it sounds more like something you'd to to keep things running in case a conflict erupts:

> The availability of parts from older ASML machines on secondary markets has allowed China to build a domestic prototype

Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips

#57

Post by apercu »

standardUser wrote: post #42
apercu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that happens, hardware trust becomes non-verifiable. We will also see talent pipeline erosion. Just further Western industrial policy failure.

Non-verifiable by what standards?

Modern GPU's often have on device firmware, secure boot chains, microcontrollers, etc. If you don't control silicon design, firmware signing and update pipelines you can't meaningfully attest to what the advice is doing.

Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips

#58

Post by kjkjadksj »

simmerup wrote: post #44
jakeinspace wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If China actually catches up and surpasses the West/TSMC in fab technology and production, I think they'd have a better option, which is simply flooding the world market with high-end chips and obliterating the Taiwanese economy. Eventually, joining an economically dominant China might become more palatable, or a necessity.

How much money would Taiwan have to be offerred to voluntarily place their heads under the boot of China

The leadership will have a price in mind and they won’t be the ones under the boot. Everyone has a price to look the other way even if they think they are principled now.

Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips

#59

Post by HPsquared »

apercu wrote: post #30
solid_fuel wrote: post #24

With Nvidia scaling down their consumer GPU production [0] I wonder if we will see consumer GPUs shipping from China in the future. Western companies seem to be abandoning the consumer/prosumer market which will have bad implications for hobbyists and aspiring professionals down the line. [0] https://www.pcmag.com/news/nvidia-might-cut-rtx-50-gpu-suppl...

If that happens, hardware trust becomes non-verifiable. We will also see talent pipeline erosion. Just further Western industrial policy failure.

Is it verifiable now?

Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips

#60

Post by apercu »

HPsquared wrote: post #59
apercu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that happens, hardware trust becomes non-verifiable. We will also see talent pipeline erosion. Just further Western industrial policy failure.

Is it verifiable now?

Fair question. The technocrats are less than trustworthy.
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