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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

#231

Post by scrlk »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #220
dluan wrote: post #214

It's wild to me that so many skeptical westerners who want to nitpick certain unproven technicalities, when the entire world only gets bits and pieces of the on the ground reality of China's progress, like the original Reuters article which was clearly fed information by insiders. You should be living in the world of "China has successfully developed EUV and equivalent litho supply chain" and basing your decision mak…

I also cant understand people being in denial about, or claiming other imagined moats or whatever. They're whipping the pants of us right now industrially, if the west has any advantages left its that we speak the truth about stuff even when it hurts, why live in denial. Also this stuff was figured out and built once before, other than the effort and resources involved (which China has lots of), why wouldn't someone…

Oneshotted by refusing to update priors from 1990s-era 'End of History' thinking.

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

#232

Post by [deleted] »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #220
dluan wrote: post #214

It's wild to me that so many skeptical westerners who want to nitpick certain unproven technicalities, when the entire world only gets bits and pieces of the on the ground reality of China's progress, like the original Reuters article which was clearly fed information by insiders. You should be living in the world of "China has successfully developed EUV and equivalent litho supply chain" and basing your decision mak…

I also cant understand people being in denial about, or claiming other imagined moats or whatever. They're whipping the pants of us right now industrially, if the west has any advantages left its that we speak the truth about stuff even when it hurts, why live in denial. Also this stuff was figured out and built once before, other than the effort and resources involved (which China has lots of), why wouldn't someone…

[deleted]

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

#233

Post by tsunamifury »

ibrahimsow1 wrote: post #206
tsunamifury wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have no idea how a command economy works. Haha. It’s literally state sponsored monopolies.

They flood an industry with funds and let them all compete with each other. Then they back the biggest winner. A command economy usually mandates X units of Y good. This isn’t quite that.

That’s only the first year after that it’s command and control for the vast majority.

Also you take is highly simplistic. Even the small players are command and control. You’re likely just not aware how it works.

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

#234

Post by lossolo »

renewiltord wrote: post #215
lossolo wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ASML owns the company that builds the light source. They acquired it, it's a US company, which is why US export controls apply, that's all. If needed, they could replicate the subsidiary in the EU.

This is too far from correct for any correction to be anything but a full restatement of the facts. Moving the tech over requires US approval. Listen, the Dutch are not going to risk it. Even if they were, ASML would not risk it because all of their customers wouldn't buy anything from a company that's on the EAR Entity List (which is where they'd end up if they tried this without the US allowing it) without US appro…

> Moving the tech over requires US approval

Of course it does, that's why I wrote about export controls but the context is not current state of the world, but what OP wrote:

> If Uncle Sam pisses off Europa Regina enough, she won't give a damn about licenses.

And in this very different state of the world, export controls are worth the same as paper they were written on.

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

#235

Post by versteegen »

jokoon wrote: post #109
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.

They were under NDA, probably But the science was probably not I don't think this is classified technology, although asml would like it if they were punished. And even if it's patented, China has been stealing everything with little consequence

One interesting and ironic part of the article is that one of the mentioned optics research groups has been submitting a lot of patents on EUV sources. Are we meant to be mad about it?

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

#236

Post by 1over137 »

Avicebron wrote: post #107
Barrin92 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is one of those 'elections matter' cases. There's no strategy. Americans made it clear they want a country run by real estate crooks, crypto bros, gambling advocates and bizarre entertainment personalities. A country sized Las Vegas maybe and the beauty is the people get always what they deserve.

Or, to play Devil's advocate, people called in the rabid dog because they felt they had been sold down the river starting in the 1970s. The hollowed out industrial towns weren't good places to grow up, and when they did manage to go to college and play by the rules the ladders were already in a fast retreat up the walls.. Damned if you. Damned if you don't.

In fact I think both you and the parent are right simultaneously.

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

#237

Post by jamesknelson »

solid_fuel wrote: post #207
bilbo0s wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to give a hint of how we plan on dealing with this, how many of those cars can you buy in the US today? You can expect to be able to buy exactly that many chinese GPU or neural processors.

You are 100% correct on that, I fully expect that importing cheap GPUs and NPUs will be banned in the US, or tariff'd so heavily that it doesn't matter should they become available. But that will just allow Nvidia to fall behind until they get surpassed like AMD passed Intel. A move like that will seriously hurt our ability to train and raise new software developers and the domestic game market.

Importing might be banned until the US loses access to its main source of GPU manufacturing. And what are the US going to do about it? Defend Taiwan? With missiles made with components and materials processed where, pray tell?

The US does need to start protecting its manufacturing again, but it’d be lucky to start at a level as high as high end semiconductors. That’d be like a stroke victim trying to run before they re-learn to walk.

As others have pointed out, this means less services, more manufacturing, less consumption, a probably a lower standard of living. But with the business as usual alternative looking a lot like business as usual in the western Roman Empire circa 450 CE, taking a hit to your standard of living while investing in a future which you still have the slightest control over, maybe feels like a decent trade.

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

#238

Post by this_user »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #220
dluan wrote: post #214

It's wild to me that so many skeptical westerners who want to nitpick certain unproven technicalities, when the entire world only gets bits and pieces of the on the ground reality of China's progress, like the original Reuters article which was clearly fed information by insiders. You should be living in the world of "China has successfully developed EUV and equivalent litho supply chain" and basing your decision mak…

I also cant understand people being in denial about, or claiming other imagined moats or whatever. They're whipping the pants of us right now industrially, if the west has any advantages left its that we speak the truth about stuff even when it hurts, why live in denial. Also this stuff was figured out and built once before, other than the effort and resources involved (which China has lots of), why wouldn't someone…

The west is still underestimating China. There is a great anecdote, I think it's from the book 'Apple in China', about their engineers visiting a Chinese production plant. Some changes needed to be made to the place. The Apple people estimated that that would take two weeks.

They came back the next day. It was finished, the Chinese had done it overnight.

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

#239

Post by lyu07282 »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #220
dluan wrote: post #214

It's wild to me that so many skeptical westerners who want to nitpick certain unproven technicalities, when the entire world only gets bits and pieces of the on the ground reality of China's progress, like the original Reuters article which was clearly fed information by insiders. You should be living in the world of "China has successfully developed EUV and equivalent litho supply chain" and basing your decision mak…

I also cant understand people being in denial about, or claiming other imagined moats or whatever. They're whipping the pants of us right now industrially, if the west has any advantages left its that we speak the truth about stuff even when it hurts, why live in denial. Also this stuff was figured out and built once before, other than the effort and resources involved (which China has lots of), why wouldn't someone…

> we speak the truth about stuff

Western propaganda works in mysterious ways.

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

#240

Post by lofaszvanitt »

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"?

Plus the deliberately overcomplicated parts.
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