Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

981–990 of 1001 posts

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

#981

Post by YetAnotherNick »

namaria wrote: post #103
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people give too much importance to being 1-2 generation ahead. Even if TSMC dies(slowly), it won't affect the world too much if Samsung continues to stay one generation behind with Intel likely joining them.

TSMC has a massive 65% of the market. There is no way Samsung or any other player can plug that whole in terms of sheer capacity before a quite long investment cycle.

I think funding won't be a problem. Every country and investor would want to fund next TSMC. In last 10 years TSMC production capacity increased by 5x. There's no reason why 10 years is not enough for Samsung[1].

[1]: https://www.nextplatform.com/2022/10/13/tsmc-the-leading-ind...

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

#982

Post by billychuck21st »

audunw wrote: post #793
billychuck21st wrote: post #604

Those thinking China vs Taiwan is like Russia vs Ukraine is greatly mistaken. The Chinese army after decades of build up is way stronger than Russia's, the enire PLA navy and airforce are built for a war with Taiwan. Ukraine still has Europe, Taiwan only has Japan, and has no border to any other countries. If the US wants to intervene, it must throw in its full weight, like the entire pacific fleet and some more, oth…

Russia has energy independence and food security. China has neither. USA could achieve a lot just by blockading China, something China is in no position to challenge since most of their navy is a brown water navy. Yeah, they can probably fight fairly well for a year or two with their reserves (depending on how much of the reserves are actually there.. corruption is an issue). But after that they risk catastrophic des…

Some of your points were true 10 years ago but not any more. China has basic food secuirty, ie. there's enough rice and grain to feed the population. What it doesn't have enough is food for livestocks which means no steak at war time, but hardly a fatal blow. China gets most of its oil and gas from Russia, given what we know about Putin it's hard to see Russia cut off the pipeline to help US. Even if they do, I don't think it's enough to stop the war machine, 1/3 of China's electricity is generated by renewable energy, they also have a lot of coal, the reason they built the gas pipeline with Russia is to move away from coal. Chinese navy is no longer a brown water navy, the 3rd aircraft carrier will be battle ready in the next couple of years and the 4th one is being built.

The assumption of US and allies completely blockade China's coast is very unrealistic, it's more likely the allied fleet will try to stop a blockage of PLA on Taiwan, which won't last a few months without external supply. And in term of drones, China is also a big player in the field. I don't think Taiwan has advantage on that. Ukraine can wreck blacksea fleet because it was a very out of date navy, unfortunately you can't say that to the Chinese one.

Difficult to land might be the only defence Taiwan has.

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

#983

Post by re-thc »

UberFly wrote: post #978
re-thc wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... the same thing will apply later on after the successful "non-invasion" of Taiwan. Maybe. I never commented on if the situation is good - just that invasion is the wrong term. Perhaps it should be self-implosion.

Go ahead an look up the column of military transports entering Hong Kong during the ahead-of-schedule "reunification" that apparently wasn't an invasion.

> Go ahead an look up

I'm well aware of what happened in quite some detail. As I said I'm not saying I agree with what happened, but it's still not an invasion. You'd at most be stopping an internal riot / protest if that's what it is.

That's like saying if the military moved between Texas and California is that an invasion? Even if you count the whole thing as a civil war that's still not an invasion. Hong Kong returned to China in 1997. Too late to be complaining in 2025.

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

#984

Post by ozmodiar »

gizmo wrote: post #665
ozmodiar wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't hate them, but it is an emberassment that a group from the same culture is so successful under a different political system that allows for more freedom. That combined with cultural revanchism about not breaking up the country (and having spent a lot of time there I can tell you it is strong) makes the existence of Taiwan as an independent nation a real sore point.

I don't think the CCP views Taiwan as more successful than mainland China. The CCP position is that Taiwan is already part of China and by that logic Taiwanese success is automatically Chinese success. I agree that cultural revanchism plays a major role.

They might not be more successful, but they are still very successful given the difficulties they face, and any Chinese person with half a brain can realize they give lie to the idea the CCP likes to propogate that there's something intrinsic to Chinese culture that requires an authoritarian approach.

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

#985

Post by infinet »

thereddaikon wrote: post #611
tnt128 wrote: post #314

The idea that the US protects Taiwan from a possible Chinese invasion over chips is one of those things that sounds believable but really isn't going to happen. From China’s perspective, the cost of war is much higher than the cost of developing these chips themselves. In the worst-case scenario, they would be 2-3 years behind the cutting edge, which is not mission-critical. Most electronics (civilian or military) do…

China doesn't want Taiwan for TSMC. They want Taiwan because they see them as a rebellious province. In their mind, the Chinese civil war never ended and that island is the last bastion of the Kuomintang. One way I've heard it described in a way that is easier for Americans to understand is; Imagine at the end of the American Civil War, a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba or Hawaii, they took it over…

> Imagine at the end of the American Civil War, a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba or Hawaii, they took it over and have been calling themselves the real America ever since.

It is a great analogy. However, in this case, that small island was taken by China even before the American Civil War. To put it into perspective, it was during the time when Isaac Newton was working on gravity.

And one episode of Open To Debate [1] argued Taiwan is the worst possible place to confront China:

> I used to give battlefield tours at Gettysburg, an extraordinary place. ... a certain cavalry General John Buford ... surveyed the ground and he knew right away he looked at the hills and said, this is good ground, ... The geography favors us. Well, I want to tell you folks, he saved our country that with that appreciation. But this is the opposite. This is bad ground. This is the worst possible place to confront China

[1] https://opentodebate.org/debate/taiwan-indefensible-0/

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

#986

Post by leshenka »

thereddaikon wrote: post #611
tnt128 wrote: post #314

The idea that the US protects Taiwan from a possible Chinese invasion over chips is one of those things that sounds believable but really isn't going to happen. From China’s perspective, the cost of war is much higher than the cost of developing these chips themselves. In the worst-case scenario, they would be 2-3 years behind the cutting edge, which is not mission-critical. Most electronics (civilian or military) do…

China doesn't want Taiwan for TSMC. They want Taiwan because they see them as a rebellious province. In their mind, the Chinese civil war never ended and that island is the last bastion of the Kuomintang. One way I've heard it described in a way that is easier for Americans to understand is; Imagine at the end of the American Civil War, a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba or Hawaii, they took it over…

> I'm not saying China is right in wanting to invade Taiwan.

I find it very surprising that a lot of otherwise intelligent people have trouble with telling endorsement from explanation. Like when I tell people about some political (or not) figure's opinions and worldviews, I'm somehow defending them. I'm not! I'm doing it exactly to

> understand your potential adversaries' motivations

Happens all the time on the internet.

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

#987

Post by geysersam »

pembrook wrote: post #445
upbeat_general wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a war crime, China has plenty of agriculture. See the Cuban missile crisis. It is an act of war but certainly not as escalatory as direct attack.

Chinese agriculture is heavily dependent on fertilizer and energy imports. A blockade would easily result in famine. In fact the history of China is just constant famines.

Is the history of China any more famine stricken than any other region if the world? In recent history (last two centuries) maybe, but before that? Typically you don't become the worlds most populous country by having frequent famines.

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

#988

Post by zizee »

mdavid626 wrote: post #933
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They want Taiwan because they see them as a rebellious province. We can argue about what the exact desire is - there's 100M people in the CCP - we'll probably never know an exact answer. The important thing is - China is willing to spend a LOT more money to take Taiwan than it is economically worth. So this idea that 1) China wants Taiwan for chips, 2) War would cost more than chips, 3) Therefore, Taiwan is logical…

> They're not fighting that war to make money. They're fighting that war because a bunch of dick bags got together in a room and decided it was expedient for them for millions of people to lose their lives. Please stop saying things like this. It doesn't help anyone.

Honest question: are you asking them to not express this idea? Or that they used uncouth language?

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

#989

Post by starspangled »

heylook wrote: post #917
starspangled wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Easy to assume you could only respond with that because you are incapable of providing a coherent response to the quoted point or any of the others.

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

#990

Post by mdavid626 »

zizee wrote: post #988
mdavid626 wrote: post #933

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're not fighting that war to make money. They're fighting that war because a bunch of dick bags got together in a room and decided it was expedient for them for millions of people to lose their lives. Please stop saying things like this. It doesn't help anyone.

Honest question: are you asking them to not express this idea? Or that they used uncouth language?

To not express the idea.
Post reply on HN