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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

#471

Post by snapcaster »

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…

I don't disagree with you on the conclusion, but man I just wish people stopped believing in fairy tales about countries like this. America does it too. Why are people so allergic to materialism? I'm not saying culture is irrelevant but saying china's success is due to "Chinese way of thinking" or america was dominant because of the "american dream" is an adult believing santa-tier take.

Material conditions shape history

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

#472

Post by andyjohnson0 »

MrSkelter wrote: post #452
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is how we approach everything. > This is because it is not only a government policy, but also a Chinese way of thinking. Nothing can interrupt this process. Is there any evidence that this kind of homogeneous "national character" is objectively real? Or is it just another story that people tell themselves?

[flagged]

> Your comment seems rooted in fear and anger.

It's rooted in neither. Care to explain why you came to that conclusion? Fyi I'm neither American nor Chinese.

I was replying to a commenter who used "how we approach everything" and "Chinese way of thinking" when explaining China's economic dominance. I was questioning whether there is any such "national thinking" in any society, still less in a society of ~1.4bn people.

Fwiw I think that China's achievement, since the mid 20th century, of lifting so many people out of extreme poverty in such a short time is extremely creditable. As is its recent action on deploying clean energy technology. I'm much less impressed with its authoritarian political system. And of course I worry about military conflict.

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

#473

Post by andyjohnson0 »

NotGMan wrote: post #448
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is how we approach everything. > This is because it is not only a government policy, but also a Chinese way of thinking. Nothing can interrupt this process. Is there any evidence that this kind of homogeneous "national character" is objectively real? Or is it just another story that people tell themselves?

Does it need to be homogenous? In the end, only a few people are needed to create companies and drive the vision.

That's what I was asking. I was replying to a commenter who used "how we approach everything" and "Chinese way of thinking" when explaining China's economic dominance, which at least implies it. I was questioning that, is all.

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

#474

Post by steve76 »

expedition32 wrote: post #241
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…

The West only represents a minority on this planet. China alone has 1 billion people. The last 200 years has been an aberration and it is currently in the process of being corrected.

[dead]

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

#475

Post by scilro »

mc32 wrote: post #466
MrSkelter wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

So some or even many people explain America’s success as a result of diversity. If that’s true then either China will need to import a diverse population (axis of diversity is uncertain), or else diversity is irrelevant and they will succeed as a more or less undiverse population (whether people are actually Han doesn’t matter so long as they believe and the government classifies them as Han). It’ll be interesting to…

"diversity" is an overbroad concept that covers many disparate social practices, a lot of which have nothing to do with technological progress.

I guess that the more focused question is whether China needs to import some amount of tech talent to succeed, at least temporarily. The reporting on this EUV prototype does suggest that that is what they did, giving foreign researchers special visas and whatnot.

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

#476

Post by maxglute »

mc32 wrote: post #466
MrSkelter wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

So some or even many people explain America’s success as a result of diversity. If that’s true then either China will need to import a diverse population (axis of diversity is uncertain), or else diversity is irrelevant and they will succeed as a more or less undiverse population (whether people are actually Han doesn’t matter so long as they believe and the government classifies them as Han). It’ll be interesting to…

Diversity is just short hand for US needs to brain drain from around the world, the success is system that disproportionaly increase size of US skilled workforce vs rest, so people better play nice with each other (worked well until not). When PRC went from making 1% of of global technical talent to 50%, and able to retain them or in this case redrain them, they win talent game for generations (at least until 2070s). They will output more stem in next 20 years than US will increase population, births + immigration, i.e. their technical workforce will be 2-3x US. "Diversity" can't brain drain enough to make a dent on those ratios.

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

#478

Post by mcculley »

cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #468
dangus wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the places where American inefficiency is most visible is in construction, urban planning, and healthcare. America blows a significant amount of its money by having its citizens drive everywhere with no option to take a train, bus, bicycle, or low-speed e-scooter. Americans take a crazy percentage of their income and just dump it into the stagnant automotive industry. Americans blow between $5,000-10,000 a ye…

Regarding your last point, back when my political views were "evolving", I had thought about if, instead of handing foreigners diplomas and kicking them out of the country as fast as possible, we should do the opposite: have student visas require that the recipient stay in the US at least five years after graduation, and then fast-track them through the permanent residency -> citizenship pipeline. It made no sense to…

I like the idea of incentivizing people to stay, but I don’t know how we could “require” it. I don’t want the U.S. to implement exit visas or egress control.

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

#479

Post by palmotea »

Levitz wrote: post #455
palmotea wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Rather, the US wants its worker coming up with the concept of drones to begin with. Which is how China gets to make drones to begin with. You don't seem to have any understanding of what a service economy is.

> Rather, the US wants its worker coming up with the concept of drones to begin with.

Sure, but that idea is too stupid and arrogant to event consider. China's not going to cede that kind of high-level work forever. They'll learn how to do it, and when that happens what will the US do?

And then, in the conflict, can your "concept makers" get their implementation done by the hamburger assemblers, with their hamburger assembler skills and hamburger assembly equipment?

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

#480

Post by CalRobert »

iknowSFR wrote: post #423
powerapple wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, the difference between East and West is money allocation. In west, especially in the US, there are a lot money in the private sector, they will take the risk and fund moonshot projects; in China, the state will (have to) play that role. Yes, 90% of the projects will fail in the portfolio, that's part of the game.

There’s a NYT’s interview several months back where the journalist phrased it as in America, you have to prove success first to get funded. But in China, funding comes first and the successful companies emerge.

That sounds more like Europe than America.
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