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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

#241

Post by expedition32 »

chii wrote: post #200
tokioyoyo wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be very fair, Chinese companies are also pursing quarterly profits. They're just better at scaling things up and down very fast because of immense supply chain options.

> immense supply chain options. so this begs the question - why isn't the west's own supply chain options as immense? My unresearched answer is that the gov't policies of the west doesn't induce it, while china's gov't does (which includes targeted subsidies, tax incentives and state driven finances). The "hidden" cost is that the workers in this supply chain isn't as well paid and isn't as powerful as the workers fr…

The West only represents a minority on this planet. China alone has 1 billion people.

The last 200 years has been an aberration and it is currently in the process of being corrected.

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

#242

Post by DoctorOetker »

scrlk wrote: post #224
DoctorOetker wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it might contain accelerometers, which burn away cryptographic fuses ( setting them all '1' or all '0' so to speak)?

Considering that these tools are installed in seismically active areas [0], the last thing a customer would want is for the tool to zeroise itself because of an earthquake. [0] https://www.reuters.com/technology/tsmc-says-all-its-sites-o...

earthquakes tend to be predicted a few minutes beforehand, so plenty of time for ASML to sign a temporary exception order for their machines.

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

#243

Post by bigyabai »

CalmDream wrote: post #230
bigyabai wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I gather from this comment is that you haven't written CUDA code in a while, maybe ever. Mojo looked promising initially. The more details we got though, the more it became apparent that they weren't interested in actually competing with Nvidia. Mojo doesn't replace the majority of what CUDA does, it doesn't have any translation or interoperability with CUDA programs. It uses a proprietary compiler with a single…

Most of the stuff you pointed out is addressed in a series of blog posts by Lattner : https://www.modular.com/democratizing-ai-compute

Many of those posts are opinionated and even provably wrong. The very first one about Deepseek's "recent breakthrough" was never proven or replicated in practice. He's drawing premature conclusions, ones that especially look silly now that we know Deepseek evaded US sanctions to import Nvidia Blackwell chips.

I can't claim to know more about GPU compilers than Lattner - but in this specific instance, I think Mojo fucked itself and is at the mercy of hardware vendors that don't care about it. CUDA, by comparison, is having zero expense spared in it's development at every layer of the stack. There is no comparison with Mojo, the project is doomed if they intend any real comparison with CUDA.

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

#244

Post by jiggawatts »

Animats wrote: post #2

A better title would be "New EUV light source built in Shenzhen". Light source said to be working, not fabbing chips yet. Few technical details in the Reuters article.

The light source is the “easy” bit. The mirrors, masks, and the rest of the machine are all individually as difficult if not more so.

The wafers have to be positioned to nanometer accuracy repeatedly and at high speed! It’s hard to believe that’s even possible, let alone commercially viable.

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

#246

Post by throw4f3245y »

rnewme wrote: post #158
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…

In late 2022 our telco soft eng team got purged and everyone who was even friends with people who might be Chinese were removed from the project. That included the original architect and product owner, both Americans but with Chinese roots. So there that!

I wonder if there would be more outrage if this was done to those with Israeli connections? Yes, Israel is an ally but they have been known to spy on us and share our secrets with other nations, like China.

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

#247

Post by Qem »

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

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

Once they break even they can overshoot into shocking new technology territory.

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

#248

Post by darth_avocado »

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

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

You’re missing forest for the trees. ASML at the moment has the monopoly on these machines. This is not only a great tool for the West to keep China at bay, but also a way to maintain economic dominance. Even if they can’t get the machine up and running until 2030, and the machine is a generation behind, China has effectively gained leverage in world theater.

From geopolitical perspective, it’s huge. Right now Taiwan produces the world’s chips, so China plays nice. The minute they can produce their own chips, even an older generation, they can invade Taiwan anytime they want. And then the rest of the world won’t even have older chips.

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

#249

Post by olalonde »

christophilus wrote: post #160
scotty79 wrote: post #122

It's kind of nasty that a fresh society of capable people has the drive to achieve technological excellence and the incumbents do whatever they can to delay this, even though it's inevitable and there's a lot to gain by empowering them. All in the name of "they are not us". World has gained so much from modern Chinese industrial revolution. Why suddenly everyone got cold feet? Nobody was stopping Germany or Japan on…

I mean, if we’re going to make that comparison, China today looks much more like pre-war Germany and Japan— set on expansion. That’s pretty clearly what the anti-China crowd is worried about. Tibet, Taiwan, Philippine islands, ever expanding naval bases, aggressive displays of power around Australia, prison camps and sterilization programs, and so forth.

China has never had expansionist ambitions. On the contrary, modern Chinese foreign policy is explicitly grounded in non-interventionism and respect for sovereignty (the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence). Xinjiang, Tibet and, per Beijing, Taiwan, are internal matters. The "Philippine islands" have been claimed by multiple states long before the PRC existed.

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

#250

Post by Invictus0 »

scotty79 wrote: post #122

It's kind of nasty that a fresh society of capable people has the drive to achieve technological excellence and the incumbents do whatever they can to delay this, even though it's inevitable and there's a lot to gain by empowering them. All in the name of "they are not us". World has gained so much from modern Chinese industrial revolution. Why suddenly everyone got cold feet? Nobody was stopping Germany or Japan on…

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