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Nvidia and its partners built a system to bypass U.S. export restrictions

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Re: Nvidia and its partners built a system to bypass U.S. export restrictions

#51

Nvidia is obviously a US company, but the chips themselves are manufactured in Taiwan. And of course China sees Taiwan as a rogue province, at at least treats invasion there as "on the table". While the US may decide to actively support Taiwan, at the very least a war over that will disrupt production. Should Taiwan fall, and China choose to ban exports from there to the US, then the fun and games would really start.…

> Should Taiwan fall, and China choose to ban exports from there to the US, then the fun and games would really start.

If it looked like Taiwan was actually going to fall, the first thing to be destroyed would be the fabs. There’s almost 0 chance China gets anything usable. If they thought they could, they would’ve invaded during Trump’s term.

Re: Nvidia and its partners built a system to bypass U.S. export restrictions

#52
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There exists a third possibility where the US and China sign an under the table deal for China to invade, the US to saber rattle and China to allow the flow of chips to continue. The present direction seems to be the US is "de-risking" from Taiwan by moving chip production to the US, so if China does invade they aren't caught in a bind.

Pretty sure TSMC has plans to destroy or disable their fabs in this event. They (or the Taiwanese) would be stupid not to.

There is believed to be a software remote disable in the ASML provided machinery but it doesn't have to be effective - an invasion would cut off the machines from the maintenance they require https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/21/asml_kill_switch/

Re: Nvidia and its partners built a system to bypass U.S. export restrictions

#53

We will see what happens - but given nvidias growth and how heavy they are now weighted I’m skeptical there will be any enforcement until well after the elections. Neither party wants to look “bad for the economy”, even if the people harmed isn’t of significant size.

>> Neither party wants to look “bad for the economy You mean like the horrific jobs numbers that came out that nobody is covering either? Like bad like that??

BLS numbers look pretty boring; Oct was +12000; nothing extreme either way. Am I missing something?

Re: Nvidia and its partners built a system to bypass U.S. export restrictions

#54
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will still make a real alternative, it's in their own national security interests to do so.

If national security interests drove development, the US would have local manufacturing of current-process-node chips instead of being dependent on TSMC.

If 5nm semiconductors were essential for some military core capabilities, they'd start building the whole production chain domestically in a hurry at eyewatering cost and probably finish it over budget and 15 years late.

Re: Nvidia and its partners built a system to bypass U.S. export restrictions

#55

I am not sure I buy this argument that Nvidia management was complicit, but it does need investigation.

As the article states, Singapore accounted for 20% (!) of Nvidias total revenue. You think management wasn't aware that something was going on? A country with about 2% of the GDP of the US and non of the large AI companies? Management either was involved or willfully looked the other way the alternative is that they are so grossly incompetent and non-involved in the company that it's hard to believe.

Singapore is a normal billing location for semiconductor products. It's roughly 20% for Intel as well https://www.intc.com/filings-reports/all-sec-filings/xbrl_do...

Re: Nvidia and its partners built a system to bypass U.S. export restrictions

#56
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's less incentive for China to control Taiwan. a very minor effect imho. china doesn't want to control taiwan due to any economic reasons. It's ideological. China doesn't want the model of a free, democratic society of chinese people to exist, because it proves that the CCP's authoritarianism isn't the only "good" model. Look at how hong kong was cracked down; china took the opportunity to do it, when the econ…

> China doesn't want the model of a free, democratic society of chinese people to exist, because it proves that the CCP's authoritarianism isn't the only "good" model. So was everything with Taiwan hunky dory when they were a murderous military dictatorship for all those decades[1]? I thought the under-mentioned beef China had with Taiwan was the fact that the ROC took (and retains to this day) all the priceless cult…

Logically speaking if they weren't taken they would have been destroyed

Re: Nvidia and its partners built a system to bypass U.S. export restrictions

#57
post #51

Nvidia is obviously a US company, but the chips themselves are manufactured in Taiwan. And of course China sees Taiwan as a rogue province, at at least treats invasion there as "on the table". While the US may decide to actively support Taiwan, at the very least a war over that will disrupt production. Should Taiwan fall, and China choose to ban exports from there to the US, then the fun and games would really start.…

> Should Taiwan fall, and China choose to ban exports from there to the US, then the fun and games would really start. If it looked like Taiwan was actually going to fall, the first thing to be destroyed would be the fabs. There’s almost 0 chance China gets anything usable. If they thought they could, they would’ve invaded during Trump’s term.

Why trumps turn trump was clearly more resilient to china then Biden if anything now before new president is best time to invade

Re: Nvidia and its partners built a system to bypass U.S. export restrictions

#58
post #35

Nvidia is obviously a US company, but the chips themselves are manufactured in Taiwan. And of course China sees Taiwan as a rogue province, at at least treats invasion there as "on the table". While the US may decide to actively support Taiwan, at the very least a war over that will disrupt production. Should Taiwan fall, and China choose to ban exports from there to the US, then the fun and games would really start.…

> there's less incentive for China to control Taiwan. a very minor effect imho. china doesn't want to control taiwan due to any economic reasons. It's ideological. China doesn't want the model of a free, democratic society of chinese people to exist, because it proves that the CCP's authoritarianism isn't the only "good" model. Look at how hong kong was cracked down; china took the opportunity to do it, when the econ…

> China doesn't want the model of a free, democratic society of chinese people to exist, because it proves that the CCP's authoritarianism isn't the only "good" model.

Can I ask what led to you generating this idea?

As someone in Taiwan it really stood out to me as an odd take.

First, considering Taiwan to be a democratic society of "Chinese" people is odd. The vast majority of Taiwanese wouldn't use the English word "Chinese" to define themselves. There's interesting wordplay happening in Mandarin for a lot of words that the CPC now translates to "Chinese," such as 漢人 華人 vaguely for "ethnicity" and 中文 or 漢語 for language. There's a long conversation to be had there about the CPC engaging in cultural imperialism and Han supremacism as an alternative means of imperializing Taiwan and elsewhere, but I want to stay focused on your message.

Second, the CPC of course doesn't think their model is authoritarian or bad, so what do they have to fear from Taiwan? Propagandic messaging regarding Taiwan is, depending on your level of engagement with "Communism with Chinese Characteristics," either "Taiwan separatist and bad enemy" (low engagement) or "Chinese people on the Taiwan island are enslaved by capitalist overlords and being used as western pawns" (high engagement).

I really doubt that the CPC feels "challenged" by Taiwan, their language never speaks to it.

Re: Nvidia and its partners built a system to bypass U.S. export restrictions

#59
post #35

Nvidia is obviously a US company, but the chips themselves are manufactured in Taiwan. And of course China sees Taiwan as a rogue province, at at least treats invasion there as "on the table". While the US may decide to actively support Taiwan, at the very least a war over that will disrupt production. Should Taiwan fall, and China choose to ban exports from there to the US, then the fun and games would really start.…

> there's less incentive for China to control Taiwan. a very minor effect imho. china doesn't want to control taiwan due to any economic reasons. It's ideological. China doesn't want the model of a free, democratic society of chinese people to exist, because it proves that the CCP's authoritarianism isn't the only "good" model. Look at how hong kong was cracked down; china took the opportunity to do it, when the econ…

It is ideological, but it isn't anything like China thinking that a "free, democratic society" is a threat. China has gotten incredibly rich under the CCP, the average stance is that its a great model. China thinks of Taiwan as a rogue province because of nationalism. A country of ethnic Chinese is both a reminder of the century of humiliation, and an affront to the idea of China being the nation of Chinese people. It is no different than Italy desiring Istria or South Tyrol, or Germany wanting Alsace Lorraine.

Re: Nvidia and its partners built a system to bypass U.S. export restrictions

#60
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's less incentive for China to control Taiwan. a very minor effect imho. china doesn't want to control taiwan due to any economic reasons. It's ideological. China doesn't want the model of a free, democratic society of chinese people to exist, because it proves that the CCP's authoritarianism isn't the only "good" model. Look at how hong kong was cracked down; china took the opportunity to do it, when the econ…

> China doesn't want the model of a free, democratic society of chinese people to exist, because it proves that the CCP's authoritarianism isn't the only "good" model. So was everything with Taiwan hunky dory when they were a murderous military dictatorship for all those decades[1]? I thought the under-mentioned beef China had with Taiwan was the fact that the ROC took (and retains to this day) all the priceless cult…

> I thought the under-mentioned beef China had with Taiwan was the fact that the ROC took (and retains to this day) all the priceless cultural artifacts. The CCP would like those back in order to tie themselves to China's history.

In doing so the ROC saved a great many artifacts of Chinese history. Many that remained within PRC territory were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.

As for the modern era, I don't believe there's "beef" about cultural artifacts. The PRC and Taiwan exchange cultural artifacts for their respective museums: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7892178.stm

Now if we want to get into the real fun nitty gritty rumors we could talk about how the KMT may have brought over a lot of gold and hid it somewhere in Taiwan...

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