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Can China build its own ASML?

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Re: Can China build its own ASML?

#31

Post by Quothling »

IshKebab wrote: post #4

Crazy that the US had to block ASML selling to China. I would have thought they'd do that themselves to reduce the risk of reverse engineering.

I think what is crazy here is that the USA can block a Dutch company from selling their products. Don't get me wrong, this would have made sense in the world 15 years ago, but today? We all know that China plays dirty, but all those US made LLM's sure seem to know an awful lot about things in IP protected content.

Though to be fair, I think everyone knew that China was always going to have their 100% domestic chip manufacturing supply chain. I'd argue that the blocks were mainly a delaying tactic by the USA oligarchy. Simply blocking ASML from doing business with China would in itself motivate China to move faster, but I guess the decision makers and their advisors calculated that it would be slower than letting China buy the machinery and reverse engineer it.

Of course that didn't really work out. The only reason the media is picking up on these stories is that China, did, get their hands on the machinery, but then... of course they did.

Re: Can China build its own ASML?

#32

Post by saidnooneever »

exceptione wrote: post #12
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

The answer is, of course, yes. What is there to stop them? Sure, it's difficult -- but where there's a will, and where the resources of China are involved, there is most assuredly a way. I remember when their cars were a joke, and when their cellphones were cheap trash. Now I don't think I'd buy a non-Chinese new car or cellphone, lol.

The comparison with cars and cellphones falls short for ASML machines. The former categories involved western companies transferring IP to Chinese counterparts. So far, the Chinese have succeeded in stealing IP from ASML, but this is complexity in its own category. Also, the whole supply chain is part of the solution. That is a lot to copy. But I agree that, given enough time, China should be able to. But Volvo en Te…

people overstate complexity of ASmL machines. They are not impossible to make or use, specialist work sure but its possible. The only reason why no one does it is: 1) IP laws, 2) Costs

China has Money and Smart people. (and very effective corporate / nationstate espionage) so they can most certainly reproduce advanced machines.

They might not have incentive yet to do it because it will not make them popular, and potentially output products would be banned on US/EU. They play a long game and want US and EU consumers to ask tehir governments to please allow the chinese products.. so their market share is safe and stable.

I think once there is enough incentive for them they would do it. They simply do not want to do it currently.

Re: Can China build its own ASML?

#33

Post by crote »

ilovecake1984 wrote: post #27
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

The answer is, of course, yes. What is there to stop them? Sure, it's difficult -- but where there's a will, and where the resources of China are involved, there is most assuredly a way. I remember when their cars were a joke, and when their cellphones were cheap trash. Now I don't think I'd buy a non-Chinese new car or cellphone, lol.

Their cars and phones are still second rate. They are, however, cheap enough to be good value.

> Their cars and phones are still second rate

So are modern Western cars - and arguably also phones.

If I'm forced to drive in a bug-riddled impossible-to-repair privacy-invading spaceship either way, why would I go for the overpriced outdated Western one rather than the affordable innovative Chinese one?

I would prefer a boring 2000s car with an electric drivetrain, but it's not like anyone is making them...

Re: Can China build its own ASML?

#34

Post by realusername »

TFNA wrote: post #24
amelius wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll soon be reading science textbooks in Chinese.

It has recently been reporting that China is cutting back foreign-language programmes in universities because AI translation is seen as the way of the future. So, in their view everyone will soon be reading science textbooks, whether of Chinese provenance or not, in any language.

I think they are onto something, language learning is quickly shifting into a hobby category (I don't mean it negatively)

Re: Can China build its own ASML?

#35

Post by khurs »

Any nation state can build pretty much anything (albeit over a varying time period), because at the State Level the budgets can be billions, no commercial pressure and also immunity from prosecution (e.g. a Chinese spy caught would be traded for something or another and returned home and state authorised hackers based in China won't get extradited).

The only thing to stop them is the will of more powerful states.

If you take Iran as an example, they would have possessed Nuclear weapons long ago if it wasn't for USA/Israel as Iran as a state will throw everything at it.

p.s. And that's a very detailed and well laid out visual article above usual broadsheet standards.

Re: Can China build its own ASML?

#36

Post by rvnx »

babuskov wrote: post #22

The question is "can anyone". Makes you wonder why the USA hasn't built one? Maybe the latest technology required some rare discovery. Just like nobody can replicate the taste of Coca Cola, maybe there some tiny detail that they discovered by experimenting.

It doesn't help that Coca-Cola has privileged access to decocainized flavor extract, from there, others are guaranteed to struggle to get access to one ingredient.

The main flabbergasting stuff about Coca-Cola is the fact that they choose to use HFCS in some countries, and sugar in others, and this is due to... protectionism again that artificially skews competition like for electronics.

Re: Can China build its own ASML?

#37

Post by eloisant »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #5
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

The answer is, of course, yes. What is there to stop them? Sure, it's difficult -- but where there's a will, and where the resources of China are involved, there is most assuredly a way. I remember when their cars were a joke, and when their cellphones were cheap trash. Now I don't think I'd buy a non-Chinese new car or cellphone, lol.

Is cutting edge even necessary? If you could build the last two nodes 10x as cheaply that would be way more valuable.

They're already capable to build microprocessors completely in-house. This is precisely the cutting edge we're talking about.

This matters for AI datacenters in particular, if they want to be autonomous in building them they need to be able to build advanced microprocessors locally.

Re: Can China build its own ASML?

#38

Post by usrnm »

monssooon wrote: post #2

They can land stuff on the moon... Generally they have world class engineers and production... Just from that point or view I don't see why not...

Humanity has been able to land stuff on the Moon for 60 years. It's not easy, but not particularly cutting edge as well. A modern EUV machine is much more complicated

Re: Can China build its own ASML?

#39

Post by andy_ppp »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

The answer is, of course, yes. What is there to stop them? Sure, it's difficult -- but where there's a will, and where the resources of China are involved, there is most assuredly a way. I remember when their cars were a joke, and when their cellphones were cheap trash. Now I don't think I'd buy a non-Chinese new car or cellphone, lol.

The usual game plan of getting the technology they want to copy by offering cheap and highly skilled Chinese labour and access to the Chinese market by building the machines there is not available to them, so the likelihood is this will take longer and be more difficult than other implementations. There's hundreds of other technologies needed other than the lasers and the mirrors and the software and the experience running these machines at scale. I think to make more than a handful of GPUs they will be behind for at least 5 years.

This doesn't mean they will always be behind though.

If I was ASML I would have an AI generated honeypot of techniques that are plausible but incorrect for China to go after on this and make sure you get hacked by them.

Re: Can China build its own ASML?

#40

Post by eloisant »

joe_mamba wrote: post #26
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

The answer is, of course, yes. What is there to stop them? Sure, it's difficult -- but where there's a will, and where the resources of China are involved, there is most assuredly a way. I remember when their cars were a joke, and when their cellphones were cheap trash. Now I don't think I'd buy a non-Chinese new car or cellphone, lol.

>The answer is, of course, yes. No, not in this case. > I remember when their cars were a joke, and when their cellphones were cheap trash. Any country can make cars and phones now if they REALLY want to, they just don't because they wouldn't be competitive on the global market at performance and at scale. But not anyone can just make an EUV machine if they want to. Becoming a leader in commodity white goods like a p…

They have more than 1 billion people that are getting more and more educated, they have the capital and will to invest in it, they will get there eventually.

The "moat" we're talking about with private companies is that it's very hard for competitors to get enough funding to compete, and private investors are unwilling to invest in a company that will compete with a big established player. That's completely different when a state has a strategy and decides to invest to achieve a goal.

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