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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

#301

Post by tjwebbnorfolk »

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.

Yes, and we all saw what happened. They've experienced serious financial consequences, some went out of business. This is exactly what is supposed to happen when you do dumb shortsighted things.

There's also risk in investing in very long-term things that may not pan out.

WAI, in other words

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

#302

Post by neilv »

Of course China will probably catch up, and surpass, in this and most things that it sets its mind to.

Instead of the US recently veering into batpoop-insane policy, the US should be focused on promoting a peaceful and equitable world that it would like to live in when it's not top dog.

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

#303

Post by dash2 »

overfeed wrote: post #210
the_pwner224 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need CUDA for gaming but software is still just as big of a moat. Gaming GPU drivers are complex and have tons of game-specific patches. With their new Radeon/RDNA architecture it took AMD years to overcome their reputation for having shitty drivers on their consumer GPUs (and that reputation was indeed deserved early on). And I bet if you go read GPU discussion online today you'll still find people who avo…

> Gaming GPU drivers are complex and have tons of game-specific patches. I don't think the Chinese government will be too upset if cheap Chinese GPUs work best with China-made games. It will be quite the cultural coup if, in 20 years time, the most popular shooter is a Chinese version of Call of Duty or Battlefield.

They made the most popular RPG last year already - why do you think it'll take 20 years for them to make the most popular shooter? For that matter, the Singapore-HQed SEA makes Free Fire, which topped Google Play in 2019.

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

#305

Post by darth_avocado »

a_wild_dandan wrote: post #281
darth_avocado wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 eff…

Taiwan’s geopolitical position is vastly more complex than the fantasy where invasion would follow merely from fab parity.

It won’t. But again you’re missing the point. It’s one less incentive not to, a big one too.

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

#306

Post by cryptonector »

kccqzy wrote: post #67
filloooo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handing out sanctions without at least a plausible legal cover, sounds like a recipe for disaster that would come back to bite. I wonder what could be used here, non-compete? IP infringement? Or doing it "for all mankind"? As for knowledge, the YouTube channel Branch Education explained EUV lithography in great detail, sponsored by ASML itself. My impression is that the knowledge is not that secretive, the precision…

Yeah it reminds me of the Smyth report, published in August 1945 about atomic bombs, commissioned by the director of the real Manhattan Project. It’s fine to reveal knowledge in detail, if it doesn’t reveal anything related to constructing the apparatuses (the chemistry and the metallurgy) needed.

The press release following the bombing of Hiroshima specifically stated which method of refining Uranium was used. The U.S. spent a great deal of time, effort, and money on researching and testing four different enrichment systems. Just that one detail saved the Soviets 3/4s of a sizeable chunk of the A-bomb effort. Sometimes you don't need to leak much detail to give away a great deal.

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

#307

Post by spaceman_2020 »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #191
christophilus wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. That's where this is heading, and the West-- as usual-- is pursuing quarterly profits and forgetting to look up.

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.

Chinese companies are simply not as beholden to shareholders - the stock market really doesn’t dominate the country’s financial landscape as it does in the US

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

#308

Post by cyberrock »

oytis wrote: post #142
solid_fuel wrote: post #24

With Nvidia scaling down their consumer GPU production [0] I wonder if we will see consumer GPUs shipping from China in the future. Western companies seem to be abandoning the consumer/prosumer market which will have bad implications for hobbyists and aspiring professionals down the line. [0] https://www.pcmag.com/news/nvidia-might-cut-rtx-50-gpu-suppl...

Is AMD abandoning consumer market though? They seem to be much less in demand by AI industry.

AMD is selling close to 10% of what Radeon* used to sell 15 years ago and yet it's all nVidia's fault: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/amd-grabs-a-share...

Edit: I meant ATI but I guess AMD bought ATI in 2006! I thought that happened in the 2010s for some reason.

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

#309

Post by checker659 »

the_pwner224 wrote: post #34
solid_fuel wrote: post #24

With Nvidia scaling down their consumer GPU production [0] I wonder if we will see consumer GPUs shipping from China in the future. Western companies seem to be abandoning the consumer/prosumer market which will have bad implications for hobbyists and aspiring professionals down the line. [0] https://www.pcmag.com/news/nvidia-might-cut-rtx-50-gpu-suppl...

You don't need CUDA for gaming but software is still just as big of a moat. Gaming GPU drivers are complex and have tons of game-specific patches. With their new Radeon/RDNA architecture it took AMD years to overcome their reputation for having shitty drivers on their consumer GPUs (and that reputation was indeed deserved early on). And I bet if you go read GPU discussion online today you'll still find people who avo…

There is nothing magical about CUDA

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

#310

Post by spaceman_2020 »

wahern wrote: post #194
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…

The motivation to invade Taiwan is rooted in the PRC's political and historical narrative about it's legitimacy and purpose, a narrative internalized by most Chinese, including especially the military. It's in a sense existential, not economic or realpolitik, and I don't see that motivation diminishing anytime soon. If anything it's growing stronger, as evidenced by the suppression in Hong Kong, which made zero sense…

The biggest victory for CCP will be Taiwan willingly joining PRC. Nothing else will be a better testament to the CCP model

Reunification with the mainland isn’t a completely unpopular idea in Taiwan. The economic ties are already extremely deep (largest trading partner by far).

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