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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

#481

Post by dangus »

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…

That seems like a pretty good idea that’s worth trying.

I think the current logic is that foreign students pay the full unsubsidized sticker price, so it’s basically a profitable transaction.

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

#482

Post by scilro »

techas wrote: post #462
lm28469 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The level of cope... The US and the west in general is on a much more dire trajectory than China (which is facing its own demons, no doubt about that) There is not much left of communism in China besides the name, it's more akin to a government steered economy, which arguably is very similar to what the west had when we moved at our peak speed, albeit more authoritarian. They still have what we mostly lost: a long te…

>There is not much left of communism in China besides the name, After living 2 years in China and visiting the country every year for the last 12 years, I disagree with you. Many not minor things in China are still very aligned with communism. How the university system works, land property, production in unpopulated areas and small towns, participation of the government in industry, etc…

It's most accurate to say that China is still run by folks who are committed communists. These planners, by virtue of their decades of experience, understand the social value of markets and broad based technological growth, and want to wield those even better than liberal planners.

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

#483

Post by heavyset_go »

snapcaster wrote: post #471
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 his…

To speak to this importance, it wasn't long ago that the sentiment I heard about the country was that it isn't, or wouldn't be, ascendant due to their "culture".

It's the Schrodinger's cat of cultures. Or maybe generalities about culture aren't to explain for economic and political velocity.

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

#484

Post by everfrustrated »

silver_silver wrote: post #443
everfrustrated wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is slightly reductionist. If consumers _actually_ cared about quality or US-made over price this wouldn't have been possible.

My counterpoint is that it’s not possible to buy appliances which last for decades anymore, because the entire industry has changed. Consumers eventually don’t have a choice

They have much less choice because all of those businesses that cared about quality have gone out of business!

100 years ago clothes were expensive items. Which is why they were class signals - less because of fashion and more because if you were poor you needed to buy long lasting fabrics. Clothes for the poor were expensive as well as the rich.

You can buy those same quality items today but nobody will because we expect clothes to be cheap and not have to repair them.

Take flights... For all the complaints about lack of legroom etc the price of a flight 50 years ago was the same as first/business class today. And yet how few people will pay for it. They'll grumble about small seats and bad snacks but hardly anybody will fork out for the upgrade. Not because they can't actually afford it but because they believe it should be cheaper.

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

#485

Post by mattmaroon »

xwindowsorg wrote: post #282
mattmaroon wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really not. It just is short hand for a government deciding that something really important is worth throwing a lot of resources at. I’ve heard it used to describe plenty of things western governments do too.

Why not Moonshot projects? like Google X.

Also good.

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

#486

Post by mattmaroon »

stupidhooper wrote: post #297
mattmaroon wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really not. It just is short hand for a government deciding that something really important is worth throwing a lot of resources at. I’ve heard it used to describe plenty of things western governments do too.

You think the headline isn’t a violent superlative?

That’s not how it’s used, no. It’s also not a superlative, it’s a metaphor. Superlative would be something like “biggest” or “best”.

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

#487

Post by DasIch »

lanthissa wrote: post #397
subw00f wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, all those countries China has invaded really shows how apt they are to do that.

yeah they really shouldn't be blockading their neighbors while claiming every country around them is their sphere of influence and openly interfering in their allies domestic politics while leveraging their size to force other countries to accept asymmetric economic deals...

How is this different from what the US is doing? See Monroe Doctrine for example and recent events concerning Venezuela?

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

#488

Post by petcat »

darth_avocado wrote: post #248
nitwit005 wrote: post #56

A "Manhattan Project" would be building some shocking new technology that didn't previously exist. If they're cobbling together old parts, it sounds more like something you'd to to keep things running in case a conflict erupts: > The availability of parts from older ASML machines on secondary markets has allowed China to build a domestic prototype

> A "Manhattan Project" would be building some shocking new technology that didn't previously exist. You’re missing forest for the trees. ASML at the moment has the monopoly on these machines. This is not only a great tool for the West to keep China at bay, but also a way to maintain economic dominance. Even if they can’t get the machine up and running until 2030, and the machine is a generation behind, China has eff…

> And then the rest of the world won’t even have older chips.

This basically just means Europe wont have older chips.

TSMC is already producing a significant percentage of their chips in Arizona. And they've even slated ~30% of their total production of 2nm chips and better will be produced in USA by 2028-2029.

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

#489

Post by irishcoffee »

jaggederest wrote: post #262
pogue wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did this whole quarterly profits thing start and what lead to it?

You can round it down to Milton Friedman as the ideology and Jack Welch at GE in the 80s as the implementation and figurehead, but the original seeds were in the SEC mandating quarterly reporting as part of regulation after the great depression. We can all agree to blame Jack Welch as shorthand though, I think.

I think it changed before that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

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

#490

Post by GuB-42 »

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]

As a non-American, I think that Americans are special in that they have the right combination of hard work and personal initiative and efficiency. To oversimplify, Europeans are efficient workers, but unlike Americans, they use their efficiency not to produce more but to work less and enjoy life. East Asians are hard workers but they tend to favor group cohesion over maximizing individual potential, which is not as efficient.

I am not saying that one culture is better than another, but I think the American way is particularly productive, particularly stressful too.

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