Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Huawei building chip equipment R&D center in Shanghai

asia.nikkei.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 51 posts

Re: Huawei building chip equipment R&D center in Shanghai

#41

Post by vidarh »

blackoil wrote: post #29
willt1979 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Huawei is in state of existential crisis. If they (China) don't have a breakthrough in chip manufacturing in 2-5 years, Huawei as the company will be finished and along with China's plan to be independent of Western world. So, think of this as their Manhattan project, not sexy or romantic, but necessary.

China rarely if ever bets on one horse. This is one of the reasons the west struggles to understand why China isn't collapsing. It's not Soviet style command economy with a single organisational structure in control over one sector. China even has multiple competing state-owned investment banks, and in most fields they have competing both state owned and private companies (note: I'm not assuming there aren't cases where this competition is heavily rigged or biased; the point is not to imply it is a free market, but that it is not the Soviet model).

With respect to Huawei, if Huawei goes, Huawei goes, and little else changes other than that the government might need to prop up some of their supply chain.

China might find itself struggling to gain full independence on the top end, but they have a range of separately operating foundry companies (SMIC, YMTC, Wingtech, Hua Hong), chip production equipment Manufacturers (Maura, JCET), and a multitude of chip design companies. China can afford a number of these - and Huawei - to fail and still have other bets.

I agree with you that the overall "project" is their Manhattan project in a sense, but that does not mean all, or even many, of the companies need to survive - they'll let individual ones fail if they don't feel like they're pulling their weight, and instead fund new/other options.

In other words: This might be "necessary" for Huawei, because Huawei wants to survive. But it's not necessary for China for Huawei to survive. Ironically that might be part of the reason for the pressure - they know there's no guarantee they'd be bailed out.

Re: Huawei building chip equipment R&D center in Shanghai

#42

Post by bakuninsbart »

DrBazza wrote: post #31
paganel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is already very advanced, I’d say that when it comes to reasonably large countries (so ignoring city-states) it is one of the most tech/industrially advanced countries out there, if not the most advanced. For example the US might still have some advances in tech but basic stuff like speed/rail systems are just not up to par, while countries like Japan or Germany might still be ahead of China in some specialized…

It's "easy" to go from nothing to 'the latest'. It's not easy to go from 'established' to 'the latest'. Ignoring the way China tramples over its peoples' rights, it was largely agrarian society. It could put factories, train lines, and roads anywhere it wants, build bridges and dams anywhere too. Now? London spent over 40 years planning The Elizabeth Line before the first shovel was put in the ground. HS2 our second…

There's some truth to this, but in my opinion especially the line about not respecting their citizens rights is a cop out. In China there are plenty of silly situations like building a highway around a house, because the person didn't want to sell. The difference is that they then just build around it, instead of incessantly discussing back and forth for decades on different approaches. Many western countries have in effect neutered their ability to move through a) lack of long-term accountability in public administration and b) a motivated minority having greater influence than the silent majority.

For politicians it is usually prudent to just kick controversial stuff down the road a couple of years for the next person to pick up. While something the Elizabeth line is greatly beneficial to London as a whole, it is annoying for neighbors, at least while being built, and for the majority EL isn't a deciding factor for election, for those neighbors it might be.

Re: Huawei building chip equipment R&D center in Shanghai

#43

Post by audunw »

paganel wrote: post #24
roenxi wrote: post #3

It is quite an exciting era to be alive in - both because of the escalating conflicts between nuclear powers but also because we're welcoming another billion+ humans into living in an advanced industrial society. Hard to believe that 1970s China has come this far. Hopefully India follows close behind.

China is already very advanced, I’d say that when it comes to reasonably large countries (so ignoring city-states) it is one of the most tech/industrially advanced countries out there, if not the most advanced. For example the US might still have some advances in tech but basic stuff like speed/rail systems are just not up to par, while countries like Japan or Germany might still be ahead of China in some specialized…

The bit caveat here is that most of the progress has been in a few areas along the coast. A majority of Chinese are still very poor and not really seeing the benefit of this technology.

Even the wealthiest provinces of China have lower GDP/capita than countries like Japan and Taiwan.

Can you point out anything specific where China is ahead in tech/IT? Are you sure your perspective is up to date?

From a European perspective there was a point where I was impressed how China was ahead in mobile payment. And I was impressed by Taiwans NFC payment tags. But today the QR code payment system seems quaint and outdated, and the mobile and NFC payment system we have seem as good if not better.

Re: Huawei building chip equipment R&D center in Shanghai

#44

Post by yorwba »

paganel wrote: post #24
roenxi wrote: post #3

It is quite an exciting era to be alive in - both because of the escalating conflicts between nuclear powers but also because we're welcoming another billion+ humans into living in an advanced industrial society. Hard to believe that 1970s China has come this far. Hopefully India follows close behind.

China is already very advanced, I’d say that when it comes to reasonably large countries (so ignoring city-states) it is one of the most tech/industrially advanced countries out there, if not the most advanced. For example the US might still have some advances in tech but basic stuff like speed/rail systems are just not up to par, while countries like Japan or Germany might still be ahead of China in some specialized…

There's two kinds of technological progress: in depth and in breadth.

A country advances in depth by pouring lots of resources into very expensive facilities the likes of which might only exist a few times on Earth in order to make breakthroughs at the frontier of knowledge. I guess a "chip equipment R&D center" counts in this category.

A country advances in breadth by diffusing technology so widely it affects the life of basically everyone. When people talk about "welcoming another billion+ humans into living in an advanced industrial society" I think this is what they're imagining.

Advances in depth get easier with a larger population, because it increases the total resources available for megaprojects. Advances in breadth get harder because so many more people need to be covered.

I think comparisons that put China technologically ahead of Western industrialized nations are confusing depth for breadth.

For example, the International Federation of Robotics has a ranking of countries by ratio of robots to manufacturing workers https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/global-robotics-race... where China is in fifth place after Korea, Singapore, Germany and Japan. But then down below, they say that China has "a huge workforce of roughly 38 million people in the manufacturing industry" – in a country of more than a billion people, that number is clearly off by an order of magnitude. I guess they're excluding a lot of low-tech manufacturing that employs the vast majority of workers. So the comparison is only relevant for a small sliver of the population.

Re: Huawei building chip equipment R&D center in Shanghai

#45

Post by hunglee2 »

mrjin wrote: post #27
hunglee2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Opportunity cost is there, I am sure China would much prefer to freely buy Western equipment. However, in case of escalating export controls, it clearly makes sense to further invest in domestic capacity. The 'opportunity gain' is more jobs for Chinese workers, more inward investment that would otherwise have gone into foreign countries.

There were intense arguments regarding whether to buy or to research in China. The "buying is better" party won and hence China lost ~30 years on chips R&D. But the embargo snapped right on the faces of the "buying is better" guys and leaving China no choice but to bite the bullet. So what those Chinese pioneers wanted but failed to achieve has now firmly implemented by the embargo...

US policy reflexive and unreflective when it comes to China.

Export controls on simply redirect investment inward to domestic R&D and subsequent production capacity. Effectively, this is defunding US and US-controlled companies, who otherwise would have hoovered up Chinese money, fed into its own R&D and maintained the lead on Chinese companies.

The policy doesn't even succeed on its own terms. But no iteration, no reflection

Re: Huawei building chip equipment R&D center in Shanghai

#46

Post by The_Colonel »

hunglee2 wrote: post #45
mrjin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were intense arguments regarding whether to buy or to research in China. The "buying is better" party won and hence China lost ~30 years on chips R&D. But the embargo snapped right on the faces of the "buying is better" guys and leaving China no choice but to bite the bullet. So what those Chinese pioneers wanted but failed to achieve has now firmly implemented by the embargo...

US policy reflexive and unreflective when it comes to China. Export controls on simply redirect investment inward to domestic R&D and subsequent production capacity. Effectively, this is defunding US and US-controlled companies, who otherwise would have hoovered up Chinese money, fed into its own R&D and maintained the lead on Chinese companies. The policy doesn't even succeed on its own terms. But no iteration, no r…

It's again the same opportunity cost, though. China has to invest a lot of money just get access at scale to the same class of chips as the rest of the world. That money could be used for actual innovation instead.

> The policy doesn't even succeed on its own terms.

The policy doesn't succeed only if you limit your thinking on the chip industry and ignore the overall strategic context. Reducing China's access to latest & greatest is only the proximate reason for the export controls, with the overall strategic competition being the ultimate reason. It's simply a mean to an end.

As you said in your previous post, China would likely prefer to continue buying western chips, because being forced to develop their own will not improve their strategic posture, at least in the next years/decades.

Re: Huawei building chip equipment R&D center in Shanghai

#47

Post by cyberax »

phkahler wrote: post #35
cyberax wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rail systems are not "basic", they are a superfluous technology for the US. There's simply no use-case for them outside of several population clusters. Instead the US has the interstate freeway system that is unparalleled anywhere else in the world in size and capacity.

Rail is important in the US, it's just not for people. The highway system isn't that much better than some other places.

The US freeway (and highway) system is great because it's consistent across the entire US. I don't know any other comparable road system of that size.

E.g. German Autobahns are arguably better than Interstates, but the entire Germany could fit inside Oregon and a bit of Nevada. And nearby Polish roads are nowhere near as nice as Autobahns.

Re: Huawei building chip equipment R&D center in Shanghai

#48

Post by mrjin »

hunglee2 wrote: post #45
mrjin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were intense arguments regarding whether to buy or to research in China. The "buying is better" party won and hence China lost ~30 years on chips R&D. But the embargo snapped right on the faces of the "buying is better" guys and leaving China no choice but to bite the bullet. So what those Chinese pioneers wanted but failed to achieve has now firmly implemented by the embargo...

US policy reflexive and unreflective when it comes to China. Export controls on simply redirect investment inward to domestic R&D and subsequent production capacity. Effectively, this is defunding US and US-controlled companies, who otherwise would have hoovered up Chinese money, fed into its own R&D and maintained the lead on Chinese companies. The policy doesn't even succeed on its own terms. But no iteration, no r…

The reason behind is that US lost its confidence to compete. So if it cannot compete, it might be easier to remove the competitors. Such move would work on smaller countries such as Japan etc. But China is another story.

Re: Huawei building chip equipment R&D center in Shanghai

#49

Post by mrjin »

The_Colonel wrote: post #46
hunglee2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US policy reflexive and unreflective when it comes to China. Export controls on simply redirect investment inward to domestic R&D and subsequent production capacity. Effectively, this is defunding US and US-controlled companies, who otherwise would have hoovered up Chinese money, fed into its own R&D and maintained the lead on Chinese companies. The policy doesn't even succeed on its own terms. But no iteration, no r…

It's again the same opportunity cost, though. China has to invest a lot of money just get access at scale to the same class of chips as the rest of the world. That money could be used for actual innovation instead. > The policy doesn't even succeed on its own terms. The policy doesn't succeed only if you limit your thinking on the chip industry and ignore the overall strategic context. Reducing China's access to late…

Indeed, China preferred buying from external sources as merchants won the debate on whether to buy or to research and it's indeed cheaper in short term.

Dependency on critical parts from external could be the only viable solution for smaller countries, but for countries like China is a intolerable risk to national security and has to be addressed at highest priority. The embargo just demonstrated how bad it could be, and it actually can be much worse in different contexts. So, obviously R&D is the only option left on the table. Cost is no longer a problem.

Post reply on HN