I can't wait for China to put its full heft in manufacturing advanced graphics cards, fast storage and much more. We need competition.
How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips
81–90 of 645 posts
Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s a good thing that Chinese companies have zero expertise in leveraging consumer demand for lower-end tech to develop know-how and catch up with the state of the art from Western-aligned companies and then economies of scale to surpass them in distribution.
Exactly. That's where this is heading, and the West-- as usual-- is pursuing quarterly profits and forgetting to look up.
Is anyone here calling legislators about it to inform them of this?
Does anyone here have leverage to affect strategy?
Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips
#83With 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...
It’s a good thing that Chinese companies have zero expertise in leveraging consumer demand for lower-end tech to develop know-how and catch up with the state of the art from Western-aligned companies and then economies of scale to surpass them in distribution.
Which then goes on to be repurposed into weapons of war.
Something to think about if considering the purchase of a DJI drone.
Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips
#84I'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…
Nowhere close, but pace now seems faster than estimated, i.e. original western estimate is they won't even get EUV prototype up until 2030s.
Right now their chips are already "economically" competitive, as in SMIC is starving on 20% margins vs ASML/TSMC/NVIDIA getting gluttonous on 50-70%, at least for enterprise AI. Current scarcity pricing = litho costs borderline rounding error, 1500 Nvidia chip flips for 30000, 6000 huawei chip flips for 20000. The problem is really # of tools access and throughput. They can only bring in so many expensive ASML machines, including smuggling, which caps how much wafers they can afford to toss at low yield. They figure out domestic DUV to 2000 series and throughput is solved.
Hence IMO people sleeping on Huawei 9030 on 5nm DUV SAQP, still using ASML DUV for high overlay requirement processes, domestic DUV to fill rest. But once they figure out SAQP overlay, which will come before EUV, they're "set". For cost a 300m-400m ASML EUV, PRC can brrrt tools at BOM / cost plus margin. Think 40 domestic DUVs and associated infra for price of one ASML EUV to run 8x lines with 30% yield and still build 2x more chips normalized for compute that they can run on cheap local energy to match operating costs. Then they have export shenanigans like bundle 5nm chips with renewable energy projects and all of sudden PRC data center + energy combo deals might be globally competitive with 3/2nm. Deal with our shitter chips for now, once they deprecate we give you something better when our processes narrows gap, and you have bonus power to boot because some jurisdictions, building grid is harder than building fabs.
Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips
#85With 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...
> scaling down their consumer GPU production [0] >> Due to Memory Shortages I don't think Nvidia wants to give up on consumer. They're a gateway into the overall AI ecosystem. Having feet planted there also make sure they can play the local game when that begins to blow up. Nvidia wants a robotics play, too. This is a pragmatic choice. And most of the money is in commercial.
> I don't think Nvidia wants to give up on consumer... This is a pragmatic choice.
You mean, NV is after the money with a heavy heart and a sad tear or two over the abandoned consumers, like "We love you so much but sorry, we must go pragmatic on you"?
> And most of the money is in commercial.
This is a serious systemic failure and it's even wilder that it's accepted without question.
Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. That's where this is heading, and the West-- as usual-- is pursuing quarterly profits and forgetting to look up.
Is anyone here calling legislators about it to inform them of this? Does anyone here have leverage to affect strategy?
It might be a bit nihilistic but at this point I don't think the current US administration has any strategy. In past administrations, it felt like even if there was a strategy, bureaucracy and lack of caring enough to do their job led to nothing happening. In this administration, it feels like there's no care for the rules so in theory a strategy could be pushed through... except there isn't one - literally whoever is the last person to talk to the president is the person who gets to set the direction.
Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. That's where this is heading, and the West-- as usual-- is pursuing quarterly profits and forgetting to look up.
Is anyone here calling legislators about it to inform them of this? Does anyone here have leverage to affect strategy?
> calling legislators
Good joke. Probably a couple of tech billionaires will eventually say something and then something will happen.
Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. That's where this is heading, and the West-- as usual-- is pursuing quarterly profits and forgetting to look up.
Is anyone here calling legislators about it to inform them of this? Does anyone here have leverage to affect strategy?
[flagged]
Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
But for most of us, that's already the case, isn't it?
For the average paranoid person who is wasting their life on it, sure
But large organizations like defense are all about distributed trust anyway - even if you could verify the hardware, the guy you order to do it is going to be a whole command chain removed and likely a contractor with a clearance in the civilian world.
Whereas your high level political and military leadership having direct contact with managers and designers in production facilities is extremely valuable.
Re: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s a good thing that Chinese companies have zero expertise in leveraging consumer demand for lower-end tech to develop know-how and catch up with the state of the art from Western-aligned companies and then economies of scale to surpass them in distribution.
Which then goes on to be repurposed into weapons of war. Something to think about if considering the purchase of a DJI drone.
the attack drones being used in Ukraine are not DJI anymore. both sides produce extremely cheap, light, disposable drones en masse.
also, consider that a $50 smartphone can drive an ICBM.