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Guangzhou Supercomputer Center Added to US Technology “Denial List”

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Re: Guangzhou Supercomputer Center Added to US Technology “Denial List”

#41

Post by pedrocr »

Kalium wrote: post #19
jeffbush wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt anymore. I can't recall any instance historically where they have turned out to have been right based on some secret information, even though they often intimate that they have some.

It happens quite a lot. The catch is that the whole thing end-to-end is secret, with the result being that you don't hear about it at all. All we really hear about on the outside is the screwups. The successes are silent.

> "It happens quite a lot. The catch is that the whole thing end-to-end is secret, with the result being that you don't hear about it at all."

That's not a catch, that's an unfalsifiable statement. Here's another way to end your comment for which there is a lot more evidence:

All we really hear about on the outside are the big screwups. All the normal screwups and marginal successes are silent.

Here's a great article on just how crappy the record of these secret organizations is:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-...

Re: Guangzhou Supercomputer Center Added to US Technology “Denial List”

#42

Post by humanarity »

I find it interesting to consider valuations for the two costs in allowing the chips to be used.

Intel chip revenue, and future business growth = +X

Security concerns, and future security concerns = -Y

I really wonder what the value of X-Y is, i.e., what's the net benefit? It's hard to reason about as a member of the public without inside information. Y is particularly opaque in this case.

Also I really think the narrative of China versus or competing with the US is overcooked. It's my feeling that both countries have far more pressing domestic and regional concerns than each other, and could stand to benefit far more from mutual strength than from any adversity. I guess the narrative makes for compelling reading tho, on both sides, for public consumption. Maybe similar to how the West vs Russia narrative of the Cold War promoted scientific activity.

I just think the world's substantially moved on from such binary narratives, because as countries have developed and strengthened economic relationships, they actually have less to worry about in terms of conflict with each other. Then again, I guess a lot of what happens is opaque to reasoning about form the outside.

So perhaps this is not a US vs China thing at all. Maybe there's some other strategy at play.

Re: Guangzhou Supercomputer Center Added to US Technology “Denial List”

#43

Post by saganus »

I know this is nitpicking but... I really hate when journalists who I would presume have some studies in literature, confuse "then" and "than".

I'm not a native English speaker and I know the difference, and for some reason this particular mistake and "their/they're/there" makes me choke.

Like I said, totally nitpicking on an otherwise interesting article but still...

"...with true blue CPUs possibly faster per socket then even the next generation Xeon Phi..."

/rant

Re: Guangzhou Supercomputer Center Added to US Technology “Denial List”

#44

Post by tomjen3 »

Kalium wrote: post #19
jeffbush wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt anymore. I can't recall any instance historically where they have turned out to have been right based on some secret information, even though they often intimate that they have some.

It happens quite a lot. The catch is that the whole thing end-to-end is secret, with the result being that you don't hear about it at all. All we really hear about on the outside is the screwups. The successes are silent.

Usually though most things are declassified eventually. Even Really Big Secrets like Enigma, CIA memos on the bay of pigs or similar eventually gets released - so you would think that we would know their old successes.

Re: Guangzhou Supercomputer Center Added to US Technology “Denial List”

#45

Post by higherpurpose »

CHY872 wrote: post #31

I can't help but feel that not supplying processors to the "National University of Defense Technology" is basically a textbook use of export regs? I don't really understand why people are complaining about this one?

Here's what one of NSA's former chiefs, Michael Hayden, had to say just a week ago (probably unaware this was going to happen):

> By the time I became NSA director in the late 1990s, however, the calculation was no longer that simple. We still wanted an MTOPS advantage, of course, but we were fast realizing that our preferred limits were undermining the global competitiveness of the U.S. computer industry — the very industry on which we relied for our success. It was becoming clear that the overall health of that industry was more important than any MTOPS advantage against a specific target country. We still insisted on limits with regard to places such as Cuba and North Korea, but we became far more forgiving elsewhere.

This, of course, had a powerful, positive commercial impact, but the NSA didn’t flip its position for commercial reasons. We did it for security reasons. On balance, this change made us stronger, not weaker, over the long haul, since retarding exports would inevitably retard the technological progress that was both our economic and our security lifeblood.

That early lesson has caused me to continue to challenge arguments that technological protectionism furthers national security. It might, but then again, it could have the opposite effect if it freezes development, alienates allies, feeds distrust or invites the creation of similar barriers abroad. I would recommend these broader considerations to those in the U.S. security enterprise with responsibility for evaluating these trade-offs today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-let-america-be-b...

Re: Guangzhou Supercomputer Center Added to US Technology “Denial List”

#46

Post by ethanbond »

CHY872 wrote: post #31

I can't help but feel that not supplying processors to the "National University of Defense Technology" is basically a textbook use of export regs? I don't really understand why people are complaining about this one?

Well, you know, free market etc.

Re: Guangzhou Supercomputer Center Added to US Technology “Denial List”

#47

Post by criley2 »

voidlogic wrote: post #35
criley2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's naive to assume that America makes all the processors. Intel and AMD have fabs all over Europe and the Middle East. Germany and Israel are known for their processor fabs. Processor makers are multinationals, not national companies. Both AMD and Intel are bigger than the US. If China stops buying from major multinational US companies, the entire Western tech industry will be hurt. No American jobs are lost when a…

Any company that wants to have a presence in the US must abide by the list as far as I know. Even further to the point AMD and Intel are actually headquartered in the US...

The point was to say that this is a Western problem not an American problem, because the ramifications against multinational companies are multinational.

Re: Guangzhou Supercomputer Center Added to US Technology “Denial List”

#48

Post by raverbashing »

Crito wrote: post #40
criley2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's naive to assume that America makes all the processors. Intel and AMD have fabs all over Europe and the Middle East. Germany and Israel are known for their processor fabs. Processor makers are multinationals, not national companies. Both AMD and Intel are bigger than the US. If China stops buying from major multinational US companies, the entire Western tech industry will be hurt. No American jobs are lost when a…

Most Intel fabs are in the US, particularly the new ones. Only one Intel fab is in Israel. All but one 14nm Intel fabs are in the US (the exception is in Ireland). The Intel fab in China is 65nm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_sit... AMD is now a fabless company. They contract with other companies that own fabs.

True about AMD

Just to add they use GlobalFoundries (US) but also TSMC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC

There are several outside of the US http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricati...

Re: Guangzhou Supercomputer Center Added to US Technology “Denial List”

#49

Post by ethanbond »

jeffbush wrote: post #14
rthomas6 wrote: post #13

I bet there's some secret info that we don't get to know that would make this bizarre move make more sense. Maybe China is using this computer to crack military servers or something.

I'm not willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt anymore. I can't recall any instance historically where they have turned out to have been right based on some secret information, even though they often intimate that they have some.

Uh, all of the cryptographic efforts of World War II?

Re: Guangzhou Supercomputer Center Added to US Technology “Denial List”

#50

Post by tomjen3 »

ryan-c wrote: post #9

Can we get a title change? It's misleading. > ... Uncle Sam has put this supercomputer centre, together with National University of Defense Technology in Changsha, the system’s creators, and Tianjin centre, among others, on so a so-called “Denial List”, which prevents any high technology from the USA to be sold to these sites. If I understand correctly Intel can't sell them any tech nor can anyone else in the US.

Then they are just going to sell it to some person in Europe who later sells them to the Chinese.
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