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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

#131

Post by exceptione »

roenxi wrote: post #104
maxglute wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah PRC probably going to dump 1T into indigenize semi efforts by end of decade, but IMO good chance they're going to treat strategic semi as commodity utility business than make NASDAQ lines go up model. When western semi has 1st tier suppliers taking 30% margin, asml taking 50%, tsmc taking 50%, nvidia taking lol 70%, there's alot of fat on the pyramid to trim. PRC doing cost plus 10-20% will basically be able to…

The NASDAQ line go up model is why the AI boom is happening and a major factor in why it is Western companies leading the charge. The more bigger issue is that the west refused to sell chips to China so they had to figure out how to make their own. And margin compression is what free markets do. That is one of the big motivators to putting free markets everywhere, the freer the market the more compressed the margins…

> There is a theme in the industries China does well in - western regulators ban cut-throat competition,

The problem is not regulation, it is the lack of it: anti-monopolist practices and deregulation of the finance industry has led us to insane bubbles, dead markets and extreme wealth concentration. Any competition gets bought, crushed, or undercut via bankrolling. This is what you get when the 0.0001% gets to pull the strings again. Must watch (3 parts): https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/103517-001-A/capitalism-in-ame...

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

#133

Post by cpursley »

simmerup wrote: post #49
cpursley wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know mass media keeps pounding this "eventual scenario" (manufacturing consent and all). Maybe it will happen, but the Chinese think on longer timelines than the ADHD West and are probably banking on A). Out-attriting, B). Out-innovating. If both happen, we might find ourselves with a situation where Taiwan voluntarily wants to align closer with China as the West flails.

China know that the one child policy has fucked their demographics and that their future isn't as rosy as it might appear now

And that's more of the "propaganda narrative" (google that term) getting pounded at us from all channels over the past several years. It's so 1984 - remember when we were told they were growing too much and getting overpopulated and the planet was going extent any moment? So which one is it? Anyways, their population decrease will be offset by AI and automation all while they still pump out more honor students than the entire West combined. They'll be fine is what I'm saying.

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

#134

Post by eastof »

mistercheph wrote: post #123
decafninja wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Controversial and possibly politically incorrect take, but the People's Republic of China sends many, many, of its citizens to study at top universities and work at top companies all over the world. I'm sure even at sensitive defense related orgs too. While I am sure that the vast majority of them are just regular people, I'm also pretty sure there are True Believers amongst them whose mission is to go out into the w…

Controversial take: Democracy and the US are awful at keeping secrets, and are incapable of winning by an information delta, if we followed your strategy we would surely be doomed. Our greatest advantages come when we work in the open, and share knowledge and empower ordinary people and the world with technology. As things stand, we are funneling our brightest minds into creating proprietary (secret) technologies...…

We haven't always been awful at keeping secrets, see the actual Manhattan Project. I like the optimism of your proposal, but how would those US companies continue the same level of R&D investment without those extra profits? If the government just directly invests, then you've just become the enemy.

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

#135

Post by spwa4 »

maxglute wrote: post #129
roenxi wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NASDAQ line go up model is why the AI boom is happening and a major factor in why it is Western companies leading the charge. The more bigger issue is that the west refused to sell chips to China so they had to figure out how to make their own. And margin compression is what free markets do. That is one of the big motivators to putting free markets everywhere, the freer the market the more compressed the margins…

Free markets suppose to compress margins, perfect market theoretically drive profits down to zero (aka involution). But you compress margin and you lose current western semi business model that is functionally monopoly suppliers/producers who can sustain 50%+ margins to keep their monopoly. Shed those margins down to 20% because competitor enters market, harder to fund R&D to keep lead, it's still "enough" to be prof…

Free markets? No, competition does that. Competition requires free markets but free markets don't guarantee competition.

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

#136

Post by CamperBob2 »

htrp wrote: post #97
bgnn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> even if they use older machines and run longer exposure times How do longer exposure times and older machines enable 2nm process nodes?

If you didn't care about exposure time, you could build 2nm chips with brute-force electron beam lithography. But the limited throughput confines EBL to research and very low-volume applications. ASML's EUV-based processes are what permit industrial-level scaling, ultimately because parallel beams of electrons repel each other while parallel beams of photons don't.

I don't personally understand why suitable EUV light sources are so hard to build, but evidently, they are. It sounds like a big deal if China is catching up in that area.

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

#137

Post by exceptione »

dwroberts wrote: post #61
nitwit005 wrote: post #56

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

They are acquiring parts to reverse engineer them and build their own

+ industrial espionage to be able to reverse engineer it at all.

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

#138

Post by pedroma »

integralid wrote: post #32
kccqzy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sanctioning won’t do anything. These former ASML employees know that their professional careers in the western world are finished. I bet they know when they are signing that they are going to stay in China or countries friendly with China for the rest of their lives.

>for the rest of their lives You overestimate length of the western outrage. Anyway what's to sanction? Almost no country recognizes Taiwan. Diplomatically they changed one job in China to another

A good benchmark would be how long the west remains mad at Russia for invading Ukraine.

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

#139

Post by roadside_picnic »

xmprt wrote: post #86
echelon wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> I don't think the current US administration has any strategy

I 100% believe the strategy is to enlarge the Trump family's wealth, and it's been a wildly successful strategy (in the past year he's been able to create billions in wealth for his family [0]). At least this vaguely ties Trump's success to the success of the United States in a limited capacity. Completely destroying the US is not ideal for him, but it's clear all policy decisions being made are being done so based on their capacity to improve Trump's situation.

We've been headed this direction long before Trump, from both parties, increasingly American policy is about what's good for American companies and in particular the people who own them. Now that pool has just shrunk a bit.

0. https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-family-business-visualize...

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

#140

Post by crote »

echelon wrote: post #82
christophilus wrote: post #64

Earlier 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?

Oh, they know. The industry has been lobbying quite badly for exactly this to happen. Why spend a fortune on innovation when a few bucks of lobbying can get the government to ban your competition because "China bad"?

As the comment you responded to said: it's all about the next quarterly profits. The fact that we are getting leapfrogged by China doesn't matter to those CEOs: that's a long-term thing, and it doesn't impact their next bonus.

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