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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

#351

Post by palmotea »

monero-xmr wrote: post #279
GolfPopper wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pursuing quarterly profits and forgetting to look up "Forgetting to look up" implies a desire or intent to do so. The United States - former leader of the collective West - made the choice decades ago to sacrifice everything on the altar of quarterly profits. All that remains are the consequences of that decision.

I would just be careful to discount the capitalist West. You’d have to be blind to ignore the massive overbuilding of property in China, which they are now demolishing. All of that wasted capital. Authoritarian regimes with controlled media always seem successful… until it doesn’t. Up until the USSR collapsed there were many prominent people in the West saying it was the superior system. The market test - meaning flo…

> I would just be careful to discount the capitalist West.

I would. It's showing the weaknesses and limitations of its ideology.

> You’d have to be blind to ignore the massive overbuilding of property in China, which they are now demolishing. All of that wasted capital.

So what?

> Authoritarian regimes with controlled media always seem successful… Up until the USSR collapsed there were many prominent people in the West saying it was the superior system.

The West is literally de-industrializing and can't seem to built shit except slowly and expensively. Industry after industry gets hollowed out as China takes the lead.

Do not make the mistake of reasoning about US vs China from the experience of US vs USSR. China doesn't have a command economy, outproduces the US, and controls many key industries. The US is resting on its laurels, and its people cope by thinking of the few industries where it's still ahead, but those are dwindling.

> The market test - meaning floating prices and the response to them - is a superior way of allocating capital.

That's not truth, it's a dogmatic assumption.

China has been able to exploit a dogmatic belief in the free market to siphon the real capital out of the West and into itself (industry and know-how) in order to achieve dominance. The US elite is content to have paper. We'll see how that works out.

> We need to see how all of this plays out

If you're rooting for China. If you're rooting for the US, by then it will be too late to course correct.

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

#352

Post by palmotea »

mullingitover wrote: post #212
chii wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> why isn't the west's own supply chain options as immense? The US explicitly chose to be a service economy. China explicitly chose to be a mercantile economy. The US can absolutely switch paths, it will just take a long time and will require pushing millions into poverty. But we're on track to do it.

> The US explicitly chose to be a service economy. China explicitly chose to be a mercantile economy.

In other words: the US wants its workers assembling hamburgers, China wants its workers assembling drones.

And when there's a conflict, the US will lose because you can't win a war with hamburgers.

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

#353

Post by scotty79 »

_lvbh wrote: post #339
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…

> Japan Pretty sure the US pressured Japan to up their exchange rate which was one of the factors in their stagflation. Germany never threatened the power of the US

So the US has always been terrible to the countries which growth they exploited?

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

#354

Post by vasco »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #323

Domestically, we often put it this way: since it wasn’t made by God, we can definitely make it ourselves. It’s only a matter of time — if not this year, then next year; if we can’t do it next year, we’ll just keep going. This is how we approach everything. There is a small caveat, though. China was not actually that far behind in the semiconductor field in the past. The problem was that corruption and fraudulent proj…

> since it wasn’t made by God, we can definitely make it ourselves.

This implies copying what someone else did. Rather than inventing something new. I know it's not what you meant but if it wasn't made by God it's because it's already made by someone else. The sentence says to me more about copying than some relentless pursuit. The people who invented the thing to copy, those were more relentless presumably.

And then again the Chinese invented plenty over the years. These generalizations are bit meh.

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

#355

Post by dleeftink »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #323

Domestically, we often put it this way: since it wasn’t made by God, we can definitely make it ourselves. It’s only a matter of time — if not this year, then next year; if we can’t do it next year, we’ll just keep going. This is how we approach everything. There is a small caveat, though. China was not actually that far behind in the semiconductor field in the past. The problem was that corruption and fraudulent proj…

Hopefully, this century, we can shed some of the 'dominating' mindset that has led to technological exclusionism in the first place. Not that catching up to the state-of-the-art isn't warranted, but that progress will become pocketed once more if we keep falling for the same economic traps.

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

#356

Post by barrenko »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #323

Domestically, we often put it this way: since it wasn’t made by God, we can definitely make it ourselves. It’s only a matter of time — if not this year, then next year; if we can’t do it next year, we’ll just keep going. This is how we approach everything. There is a small caveat, though. China was not actually that far behind in the semiconductor field in the past. The problem was that corruption and fraudulent proj…

The final outcome is affected by the final 10%, you can even call it 1%, for which the semi-corrupt or "communistiquesque" countries never (seemingly) have the will or sheer talent for.

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

#357

Post by yosefk »

vasco wrote: post #354
yanhangyhy wrote: post #323

Domestically, we often put it this way: since it wasn’t made by God, we can definitely make it ourselves. It’s only a matter of time — if not this year, then next year; if we can’t do it next year, we’ll just keep going. This is how we approach everything. There is a small caveat, though. China was not actually that far behind in the semiconductor field in the past. The problem was that corruption and fraudulent proj…

> since it wasn’t made by God, we can definitely make it ourselves. This implies copying what someone else did. Rather than inventing something new. I know it's not what you meant but if it wasn't made by God it's because it's already made by someone else. The sentence says to me more about copying than some relentless pursuit. The people who invented the thing to copy, those were more relentless presumably. And then…

The Chinese are ahead at too many things at this point to think they're only good at copying

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

#358

Post by dleeftink »

vasco wrote: post #354
yanhangyhy wrote: post #323

Domestically, we often put it this way: since it wasn’t made by God, we can definitely make it ourselves. It’s only a matter of time — if not this year, then next year; if we can’t do it next year, we’ll just keep going. This is how we approach everything. There is a small caveat, though. China was not actually that far behind in the semiconductor field in the past. The problem was that corruption and fraudulent proj…

> since it wasn’t made by God, we can definitely make it ourselves. This implies copying what someone else did. Rather than inventing something new. I know it's not what you meant but if it wasn't made by God it's because it's already made by someone else. The sentence says to me more about copying than some relentless pursuit. The people who invented the thing to copy, those were more relentless presumably. And then…

All is copied in one way or another, progress in a vacuum is truly artificial and those who've been singularly credited for certain inventions likely have so because of the luck of the draw.

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

#359

Post by bean469 »

barrenko wrote: post #356
yanhangyhy wrote: post #323

Domestically, we often put it this way: since it wasn’t made by God, we can definitely make it ourselves. It’s only a matter of time — if not this year, then next year; if we can’t do it next year, we’ll just keep going. This is how we approach everything. There is a small caveat, though. China was not actually that far behind in the semiconductor field in the past. The problem was that corruption and fraudulent proj…

The final outcome is affected by the final 10%, you can even call it 1%, for which the semi-corrupt or "communistiquesque" countries never (seemingly) have the will or sheer talent for.

> "communistiquesque" countries never (seemingly) have the will or sheer talent for.

I don't have the data to back it up, but I think that there is actually the same amount of will and talent in China as in the West

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

#360

Post by mzhaase »

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 recommend the HTX Studio YouTube channel. The things that they release on a regular basis would be year long engineering projects on other channels.
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