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Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

nytimes.com

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Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#11

Post by ksk »

fermienrico wrote: post #2

Having worked in China in the semiconductor industry, it really saddens me what the Chinese are trying to do. You simply cannot out innovate 4 decades of work in a few years no matter how much money you throw at it. Also, China has a branding problem and it is only going to get worse. They can make short term progress but it takes a long time to build a great brand.

>You simply cannot out innovate 4 decades of work in a few years no matter how much money you throw at it.

Could you explain your reasoning?

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#12

Post by RamshackleJ »

krapht wrote: post #7
RamshackleJ wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing IP mostly helps manufacturing, It doesn't really help innovation. If they want to build up their semiconductor industry they need to steal the people who are creating IP, which is kinda the opposite of what is happening. the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule.

People write this glibly without understanding history. Soviet Russia made great leaps in science and technology where it was a national priority. You can have academic freedom in most scientific disciplines without the political freedom to criticize the government.

TLDR; But the soviets lost.

I'm not an expert in soviet history but I feel like their efforts around science and technology were economically unsustainable and almost all of them were directly or tangentially related to the military. I don't remember the soviets exporting consumer goods to the west.

Academic freedom isn't the only freedom that scientists and engineers care about.

I don't doubt that china can spend a ton of money, trap its engineers/scientists and use its media machine to try to keep its population focused on nationalism. I just think that if that didn't work for the Soviets it wont work for China. That said china's current system will probably work great right until it doesn't. Idk I'm just some person on a computer though....

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#14

Post by jacquesm »

RamshackleJ wrote: post #5
fermienrico wrote: post #2

Having worked in China in the semiconductor industry, it really saddens me what the Chinese are trying to do. You simply cannot out innovate 4 decades of work in a few years no matter how much money you throw at it. Also, China has a branding problem and it is only going to get worse. They can make short term progress but it takes a long time to build a great brand.

Stealing IP mostly helps manufacturing, It doesn't really help innovation. If they want to build up their semiconductor industry they need to steal the people who are creating IP, which is kinda the opposite of what is happening. the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule.

Stealing IP definitely helps innovation. To get to the innovation stage you first need to reach parity. There is no faster way to reaching parity than to steal IP.

As for the "the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule", that's nonsense that would have found an audience in the 1950's or so when talking about Russia, but it really is out of place in 2018 when talking about China.

China has a lot of catching up to do but this kind of reasoning is so far off-base that it makes me wonder whether or not you've given it much thought at all. The political system of a country does not magically stop people from thinking about technological problems. It's mostly a matter of degree of efficiency than it is of achieving a certain capability.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#15

Post by jacquesm »

tryptophan wrote: post #9
krapht wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People write this glibly without understanding history. Soviet Russia made great leaps in science and technology where it was a national priority. You can have academic freedom in most scientific disciplines without the political freedom to criticize the government.

Have any examples? As far as I am aware, the USSR only beat USA at getting into space first.

The Russians had a head start in various materials sciences knowledge, notably metallurgy.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#16

Post by lainga »

krapht wrote: post #7
RamshackleJ wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing IP mostly helps manufacturing, It doesn't really help innovation. If they want to build up their semiconductor industry they need to steal the people who are creating IP, which is kinda the opposite of what is happening. the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule.

People write this glibly without understanding history. Soviet Russia made great leaps in science and technology where it was a national priority. You can have academic freedom in most scientific disciplines without the political freedom to criticize the government.

They also slid backwards several decades in agronomy, and possibly caused famines, when that was a national priority.

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

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#17

Post by genericone »

I mentioned this in a previous comment I made:

"It's a very secret industry, and getting even tighter now since China has been blocked from acquiring the latest semiconductor technology. China has so far invested over $40 billion in boosting their chip-making abilities, to acquire capital, IP, and knowledge-workers. Given their history of borrowing technology from other countries without attribution, if I were at the head of a semiconductor related company, I would clamp down on the secrets ahead of the danger."

Looks like the clamp-down didn't happen soon enough...

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#18

Post by HillaryBriss »

Invictus0 wrote: post #8

Corporate and national espionage are as old as time, and senior leadership needs to wise up to this threat. China is running the most broad and sophisticated IP espionage campaign in history, and most companies think a 15m PowerPoint about not responding to phishing emails is sufficient protection against this. Until we get some strong legislation on corporate data security, this is just going to keep happening.

US corporations are willing players in this game. in exchange for their IP, US corporations are promised vast revenue from access to China's markets.

the C-suite benefits. shareholders probably benefit. does the average US resident benefit?

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#19

Post by HillaryBriss »

crb002 wrote: post #3

DOD would have way more cost effective spending ditching the F-35 flying turkey and buying the IP for TSMC, and moving US fab to Virginia/Austin.

yeah, but ... does the IP for TSMC reside in some easily transferred tangibles? wouldn't the DOD really need to transfer the whole community of engineers and ecosystem of suppliers?

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#20

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

RamshackleJ wrote: post #5
fermienrico wrote: post #2

Having worked in China in the semiconductor industry, it really saddens me what the Chinese are trying to do. You simply cannot out innovate 4 decades of work in a few years no matter how much money you throw at it. Also, China has a branding problem and it is only going to get worse. They can make short term progress but it takes a long time to build a great brand.

Stealing IP mostly helps manufacturing, It doesn't really help innovation. If they want to build up their semiconductor industry they need to steal the people who are creating IP, which is kinda the opposite of what is happening. the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule.

It’s the same culture that sends tidal waves of students to American universities to earn Ph.Ds, and because of our piss-poor immigration system, most of them have to go back home with all of that valuable education and use it in China or India or wherever instead of the USA.
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