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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

#291

Post by scrubs »

jaggederest wrote: post #278
terminalshort wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not real. Companies routinely lose money for years in pursuit of long term growth. But for some reason people love to use this as an explanation of everything wrong in our country.

I'd cite as a counterexample in recent memory Sears, GE, Boeing, and Intel. I think collectively they've destroyed close to a trillion dollars by focus on quarterly results over long term, and they're not alone.

I sometimes wonder what a Drucker or ishikawa would say of today's "vaunted American management". Speed roughly short term thinking is too strong of a force in our American thinking. Heck I've counted three recent HN posts this month pushing for speedy software development too.

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

#292

Post by roadside_picnic »

tempest_ wrote: post #268
roadside_picnic wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Completely destroying the US is not ideal for him How can you say? The ultra wealthy are not playing team sports. If the country burned tomorrow they would just sit on their yacht or buy citizenship somewhere else. Sure the lion share of his investments are currently in the US, but that could easily change.

Most cynically? I sincerely believe there's more value he can extract from American workers if he can keep the ride going on just a bit longer. For example: it's better to keep the stock market a float a volatile so he can transfer a bit more wealth from the American people before it does eventually break down.

Yes, they'll all be on yachts when the shit hits the fan, but they're still fighting to figure out who get the biggest yacht, and right now it seems like Trump has more to milk from us before he entirely lets this thing fall apart.

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

#293

Post by mcny »

terminalshort wrote: post #264
pogue wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did this whole quarterly profits thing start and what lead to it?

It's not real. Companies routinely lose money for years in pursuit of long term growth. But for some reason people love to use this as an explanation of everything wrong in our country.

The exception proves the norm.

The only major example I can think of is Amazon dot com which famously reinvested all its profits into itself for well over a decade.

The fact that investors didn't punish Amazon dot com was seen as befuddling in the press.

> Companies routinely lose money for years in pursuit of long term growth.

No, I don't think this is true at all because you used the word "routinely". I would claim it is very rare.

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

#294

Post by energy123 »

subw00f wrote: post #257
mywittyname wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> get along with China better. This will probably never happen. All countries are rivals, and the semblance of cooperation is really just the manifestation of a power imbalance. China grew into their big boy pants and can hold their own on the international stage. They have no need to be cooperative because they are in the International Superpower Club. Their strategic ambitions do not align with those of their rival…

Yeah, all those countries China has invaded really shows how apt they are to do that.

Please spare us. China invaded Vietnam to protect Pol Pot while he was mass killing millions of innocent civilians. They have territorial disputes with over 10 countries, which they've been unable to decisively act on because those neighbors either have nukes (India) or are protected by a more powerful country (US). Not because their government is some benevolent entity. They're basically an authoritarian dictatorship that's kind of cornered at the moment (like Saddam after the Gulf War) but would kill a bunch of people and expand if the US wasn't around.

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

#295

Post by energy123 »

dluan wrote: post #208
standardUser wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more China advances domestically, especially in this area, the less it has to gain from invading Taiwan. China is getting to the point where the conquest is finally doable (rapidly advancing and massive military, plus a weak US president), but the potential gains are diminishing year to year. I'd speculate that if they don't invade during Trump's term, they never will, and will pursue a different course down the…

Reunification in Taiwan has nothing to do with chips, and militarily PRC was able to do so a long time ago. The political will in PRC to "kill other Chinese" is zero.

> The political will in PRC to "kill other Chinese" is zero.

Counts for nothing, these narratives are built on sand. Russians also saw Ukrainians as "brothers", as did South/North Koreans before the war, among countless other examples.

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

#296

Post by energy123 »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #143

Good for them, I don't see this as a big deal other than my fear of west china invading china (taiwan! :) ). Don't get me wrong, I want the west to succeed, but a competition from China is exactly what is needed. They're building datacenters in arizona and india for TSMC because of this competition. I really hope we get past historical political rivalry and get along with China better. Competition is good, hostility…

> I don't see this as a big deal other than my fear of west china invading china (taiwan! :) ).

Isn't that "other than" clause a big deal, though? I've read a survey and a number of articles from defense and foreign policy types, and the general feeling is there's a ~25% chance that China will invade Taiwan this decade. That's really damn big. If there's rollback in Taiwan then the first island chain could plausibly fall, or if not you will surely see Japan and maybe South Korea nuclearize. Why must we keep assuming the best with these security calculations instead of believing someone when they keep saying what they're going to do?

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

#297

Post by stupidhooper »

mattmaroon wrote: post #273
stupidhooper wrote: post #271

Why is it that whenever China is concerned, their most non-violent aspirations are always framed as evil? Manhattan project for anything outside a literal nuke is pretty wild for a headline.

It’s really not. It just is short hand for a government deciding that something really important is worth throwing a lot of resources at. I’ve heard it used to describe plenty of things western governments do too.

You think the headline isn’t a violent superlative?

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

#298

Post by jandrewrogers »

stupidhooper wrote: post #271

Why is it that whenever China is concerned, their most non-violent aspirations are always framed as evil? Manhattan project for anything outside a literal nuke is pretty wild for a headline.

“Manhattan Project” is an ubiquitous metaphor that has nothing to do with nukes or weapons. The media describes everything from climate research to AI this way. Companies often refer to their own strategic internal projects as a “Manhattan Project”.

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

#299

Post by [deleted] »

mistercheph wrote: post #130
simmerup wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why would the nation that implemented the one-child policy be unable to implement a three child policy?

[deleted]

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

#300

Post by jandrewrogers »

stupidhooper wrote: post #297
mattmaroon wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really not. It just is short hand for a government deciding that something really important is worth throwing a lot of resources at. I’ve heard it used to describe plenty of things western governments do too.

You think the headline isn’t a violent superlative?

No, it isn’t. The media uses that term to describe any big strategic R&D project. Anyone that reads English language media would know this.
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