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TSMC expected to announce $100B investment in U.S.

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Re: TSMC expected to announce $100B investment in U.S.

#911

Post by heylook »

crote wrote: post #893
plaguuuuuu wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSMC chips are used in basically everything military - computers obviously, but also tanks, planes, carriers, signals.... Taiwan would be quite invested in TSMC being a supplier of these.

Are TSMC chips crucial for them, though? As I understand it, the military generally isn't a big fan of "move fast and break things". They prefer mature, well-designed, and reliable products because it's a matter of life and death - and development takes years . A 2025 tank isn't going to use chips made using TSMC's cutting-edge 3nm node. Personally I'd expect the fastest chips to be using at best something like the d…

> They prefer mature, well-designed, and reliable products because it's a matter of life and death - and development takes years.

First, the history of chip design and manufacturing is the history of modern weapons design[0]. As long as chips have existed we've been sticking them in brand spanking new weapons systems precisely because it's a matter of life and death. Chip makers of all kinds live and die by defense contracts.

"Because it's a matter of life and death" as a roadblock only makes sense if you don't think about it at all. If I offload some of my SIGINT processing to my brand new 3nm nodes and they don't work, won't my scheduler just mark them bad and reallocate the work back to the machines I had before? If my first shipment of 3nm drone chips doesn't deliver as promised, I've still got my existing inventory of 5nm drones and plenty of suppliers. You balance the inherent riskiness of new technology via redundancy, not avoidance.

> A 2025 tank isn't going to use chips made using TSMC's cutting-edge 3nm node.

No shit. But 2025 servers can, so can 2025 drones, so can 2025 bombs, so can 2025 satellites. Do you think whoever figures out how to communicate via quantum entanglement[1] is going to just not do it because "it's a matter of life and death"? Hell no. They're going to use it to run circles around their enemies while it's working, and they'll fall back to older communication channels when it isn't working.

[0] https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0310bombs/ [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-reaches-new...

Re: TSMC expected to announce $100B investment in U.S.

#912

Post by hayst4ck »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #858
hayst4ck wrote: post #799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no “reason” or justification. The decision to invade has already been made, all these explanations exist for the sole purpose of making it easier to do nothing about it when the invasion happens. Chinese people feel they way they are taught to feel. China's fundamental argument distilled to its most pure form is "we are strong enough to do this, what are you going to do about it?" A world where the strong do…

> A world where the strong do whatever they want because no one can do anything about it is not a world anyone should want to live in. You're fooling yourself if you don't think we live in, and have always lived in, this world. Citizens like me, living in a relatively just society, can tell ourselves the world is not like this because of our daily lives, but the reality is if some group of people even stronger doesn'…

Freedom is a function of solidarity -- each man's willingness to sacrifice for his fellow man. If some are willing to make the sacrifice you can be free. If none are willing to make the sacrifice then all will die a slave. Unfortunately this means that some of the architects of a world we want to live in won't get to experience it.

Re: TSMC expected to announce $100B investment in U.S.

#913

Post by heylook »

peterbecich wrote: post #833
ta1243 wrote: post #831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly these were due to social media manipulation

In my opinion it is a populist movement, and we should accept this hard truth. Trump is in office due to "manipulation" to the same extent that any speech is manipulation. He is a salesman and has sold his vision for the country successfully.

https://www.aaiusa.org/library/disinformation-campaigns-aime...:

Almost daily, Michigan’s Arab Americans voters in precincts of heavy concentration are receiving glossy mailings with messages like: “Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff: Unwavering Support for Israel” or “Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff, the ultimate pro-Israel power couple” or “Kamala Harris and Elissa Slotkin [the Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan]: The proven team we can trust to stand up for the Jewish community.” And targeted video messaging on social media sites saying things like “Kamala Harris stands with Israel.”

Meanwhile, in areas of Pennsylvania where there are heavy concentrations of Jewish voters, homes are receiving messages like: “Kamala Harris will embolden anti-Semites” or “Donald Trump always stands up for the Jewish people.” And targeted video messaging on social media platforms saying “Kamala Harris will not be silent about human suffering in Gaza” or “Two-faced Kamala Harris: Standing with Palestine and not our ally, Israel.”

These mailings and social media posts are paid for by a dark money group, Future Coalition PAC. Researchers have identified that one of the major donors to this group is Elon Musk, the principal owner of X and a strong supporter of Donald Trump’s presidential bid.

Re: TSMC expected to announce $100B investment in U.S.

#914

Post by heylook »

re-thc wrote: post #575
abirch wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unsure of how many internet services Taiwan relies on outside of Taiwan? If the servers are on the island, my understanding is that they'll be fine. Unfortunately they won't be able to access Hacker News, but they should be able to bank, buy groceries, etc.

> If the servers are on the island, my understanding is that they'll be fine. Taiwan doesn't have a huge data center capacity. A lot of services are in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, etc... Of the big clouds e.g. AWS is only opening a data center later this year. It's also not so simple. Even local servers / services might have all sorts of "needs" to phone "home" elsewhere e.g. for analytics. A lot of software might n…

You seem to believe that military networks are slapped together with off-the-shelf SaaS apps, or that military software contracts don't specify that all that "e.g. for analytics" crap has to be pulled out of the build, or that they don't test these things regularly.

Have you ever worked on a military contract? Or even just a regular government contract? It's a whole other type of sales, contracting, and fulfillment process.

Re: TSMC expected to announce $100B investment in U.S.

#915

Post by jychang »

makeitdouble wrote: post #902
rurp wrote: post #850

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear proliferation is the only logical response to this administration. Tripling the number of nuclear armed countries will greatly increase the odds of a hot conflict breaking out which risks the safety of everyone in the world. Of course this fairly straightforward calculus seems beyond what trump/musk are capable of and they are actively working to make Americans safer and less prosperous is countless ways.

At some point having nukes might not make a difference though. To quote the mean, when everyone is special nobody is anymore, and having proxy access to nukes could be enough as a deterrent (e.g. being in an alliance that triggers a nuclear response in case of nuclear attack should be enough ?)

Eh "when everyone is special nobody is anymore" is strongly not true when it comes to nukes and MAD. This is obvious.

Re: TSMC expected to announce $100B investment in U.S.

#916

Post by Swenrekcah »

fasbiner wrote: post #906
the_clarence wrote: post #876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of Europe hates the US now. Same with Canada. Just ask any of your foreign friends

The lack of self-awareness and celebratory exclusion of most of humanity from this assertion is deeply concerning. Is there a reason that you consider people in vietnam, indonesia, the philippines, slovakia, mali, and dozens of other countries that are recent/ongoing victims of the rapacious and ultra-violent "good europeans" or the liberal-imperial US in recent ( A) Not part of the world (since you're explaining the…

I don’t believe the person you responded to was talking about people outside Europe, since they specifically mentioned Europe.

Is there a reason you are getting offended on behalf of other people that weren’t mentioned?

Re: TSMC expected to announce $100B investment in U.S.

#917

Post by heylook »

starspangled wrote: post #262
yo_yo_yo-yo wrote: post #121

I cannot even begin to imagine what madness has infected the Taiwanese government to allow this. I feel so sorry for a great, entrepreneurial people. US tariffs will not matter when you are blockaded and Chester Nimitz is very much dead. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43123628

TSMC factories on Taiwan are small fry in the scheme of things and won't really move the needle much, in terms of strategy. Samsung and Intel are pretty comparable in manufacturing capability, within a couple of years really. And most chips you find in cars and ships and missiles and satellites and jets aren't leading-edge either. China is terrified of their access to the sea being blockaded. They'd gladly give up TS…

> Samsung and Intel are pretty comparable in manufacturing capability, within a couple of years really.

Thank you for making it so easy to completely ignore the rest of your comment.

Re: TSMC expected to announce $100B investment in U.S.

#918

Post by fasbiner »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #916
fasbiner wrote: post #906

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of self-awareness and celebratory exclusion of most of humanity from this assertion is deeply concerning. Is there a reason that you consider people in vietnam, indonesia, the philippines, slovakia, mali, and dozens of other countries that are recent/ongoing victims of the rapacious and ultra-violent "good europeans" or the liberal-imperial US in recent ( A) Not part of the world (since you're explaining the…

I don’t believe the person you responded to was talking about people outside Europe, since they specifically mentioned Europe. Is there a reason you are getting offended on behalf of other people that weren’t mentioned?

Look at the entire thread and notice my comment explicitly referenced the GP comment and the prior dialogue. This can be expressed as a set of logical axioms, and I hope that you are simply bad at reading comprehension.

1. "Everyone on earth hates X now"

2. "Well, not the whole world, that's not a serious claim"

3. "My evidence that it is indeed true that everyone on earth hates X is that a majority of white western europeans hate X, as will all of your non-american friends, all of them."

4. "Equating a majority of white western europeans as evidence of the feelings of all people on earth is implicitly exclusionary and illogical."

5. "I'm going to ignore the original claims being discussed and their context even though there are literally nested comments to show associated thoughts and doing so violates the basics of reading comprehension."

So that should catch you up. Again, I'd like to assume good faith but "pretending top level comments don't exist or inform subsequent comments" indicates some kind of learning disability or lack of socialization.

Re: TSMC expected to announce $100B investment in U.S.

#919

Post by gaoryrt »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #126
_t9ow wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan is still not allowed to buy F35 fighters. And the weapons they are allowed to buy from the US are delivered late and of poor quality: Taiwan Is Getting Its U.S. Weaponry—but Years Behind Schedule: https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/taiwan-is-getting-its-u-s-wea... U.S. delivered "wet and moldy body armor" to Taiwan, Pentagon watchdog says: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-wet-moldy-body-armor-to-tai... The US has…

"Taiwan is the United States’ 7th-largest merchandise trading partner ($158.6 billion in total goods trade), 10th-largest export market ($42.3 billion), and 8th-largest source of imports ($116.3 billion), according to 2024 U.S. data (and when the European Union is considered as one trading partner). " https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10256 Sounds like we've been a great partner with Taiwan. Also, want…

Guess who Taiwan's largest import and export trading partner is?

Re: TSMC expected to announce $100B investment in U.S.

#920

Post by rurp »

osrec wrote: post #865
rurp wrote: post #850

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear proliferation is the only logical response to this administration. Tripling the number of nuclear armed countries will greatly increase the odds of a hot conflict breaking out which risks the safety of everyone in the world. Of course this fairly straightforward calculus seems beyond what trump/musk are capable of and they are actively working to make Americans safer and less prosperous is countless ways.

Safer? Do you mean the opposite?

Whoops, yep I definitely meant "less safe"
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