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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

#341

Post by overfeed »

dash2 wrote: post #303
overfeed wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Im aware of Genshin Impact, and that NetEase is behind Marvel Rivals. FPS tend to have sticker fanbases, but I chose 20 years because that's what I guess is how long it may take not only for the domestic EUV to launch and get yields good enough for a cheap but competitive GPU out the door.

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

#342

Post by throwaway290 »

energy123 wrote: post #294
subw00f wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dictatorshi…

They do it in the sea already. Just look at that nine dash line...

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

#343

Post by wewxjfq »

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…

It's wild that every comment section about China these days must paint the picture of these rabid anti-Chinese Westerners who are saying that China is an eternal backwater, yet one never sees actual comments like this, and how all of Western media is pushing anti-China propaganda, when the submitted article is just a neutral bit.

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

#344

Post by gorgoiler »

mcny wrote: post #293
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.

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…

FAANG-like stock, in general, has paid little to zero dividends for long periods of time post IPO, their rational stock values being based on hypothetical future dividends only after the initial self-investment phase is over.

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

#345

Post by jpgvm »

pkulak wrote: post #333
parineum wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However EVs and green-tech are analagous to the XFEL path, they built from scratch and leapt over the competition that was happy to sit on it's existing profitable tech instead. I'm not convinced Chinese EVs are technologically better. They've just command economied demand and reduced costs via mass production. The technology seems pretty inline with anything available in the West but demand isn't there to take adv…

Making batteries for $80/kWh IS the next gen tech. I’m pretty sure China invented lipo (EDIT: I meant lfp) (at least they’re the only ones making it) and they’re currently pushing ahead on sodium ion. They are also the ones who have pushed lithium ion to the point it is today. My first EV was a Nissan Leaf that cost 40 grand and could drive 80 miles. Now you can buy 300-mile cars for about that. That was all China’s…

They didn't invent LiPo (and you probably don't want those in a car), nor did they invent LFP (LiFePO4) but they did license it when no one else wanted to and turned it into probably the best EV battery tech you can buy today. They didn't innovate a ton on the chemistry but they did on the packaging side, BYD and CATLs structural pack designs exploit the low thermal runaway characteristics in a way that wouldn't be safe for NMC etc to reach near parity on density but with better longevity and cost.

They will be the first to sodium ion and solid state though.

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

#346

Post by cess11 »

amluto wrote: post #277

If I were running this show, I would have a second concurrent project as a hedge and as a chance of leapfrogging the West: trying to make free electron laser lithography work. Free electron lasers have lots of (theoretical) advantages: no tin debris, better wavelength control, the ability to get even shorter wavelengths, higher power, higher efficiency, and it’s less Rube Goldberg-ish. Also the barrier to entry for b…

I'm not all that familiar with the intricacies of this industry but it seems they have at least one corporation with ambitions in this area:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3333641/chin...

That mention of "quantum" seems suspicious, but it's beyond me to judge whether their presentations are credible:

http://lumi-universe.com/?about_33/

If they actually produce machines that can do ~14 nm stuff on "desktop" sized equipment, perhaps we'll see a lot of it eventually. As far as I can remember a lot of decent processing and storage chips were made with ~14 nm processes over the last decade or so.

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

#348

Post by beAbU »

this_user wrote: post #238
bad_haircut72 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I believe Tim Cook himself has said Apple is manufacturing in China not because of cheap labour, but because of good engineering.

It's ironic that a lot of western domestic manufacturing takes place using machines that were engineered and manufactured in China.

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

#349

Post by tgv »

why-o-why wrote: post #324
ReptileMan wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A "Manhattan Project" would be building some shocking new technology that didn't previously exist. I think that both Germany and USSR were not in the least shocked ... just the USA had the resources to finish it.

Well, USSR did finish, just 4 years later. Maybe it was because we had all those immigrants working on it (e.g. Albert Einstein, Hans Bethe, and John von Neumann)!

There's a whole regiment of immigrants who worked on the Manhattan project, as we all know. We also know that the USSR obtained much of their knowledge on how to build the bomb through espionage.

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

#350

Post by beautiful_zhixu »

nebula8804 wrote: post #284
this_user wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I often wonder what is it that's driving the Chinese to work themselves to death to get this stuff done? Surely there must be some limit. I guess we can see it in the low birth rates, the youth unemployment, and I guess the desire to just survive because there's just so many people there. But still, I just don't get how Chinese just keep going and going. What is their end goal on a person to person level? Are they ju…

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