[igravious]

Why shouldn't the largest economy in the world be able to produce high tech microprocessors?

The suggestion that they'd be banning the export of Intel processors is dumb.

The "Hilarious" is just icing. To me the whole comment smacks of racism. What would you call it? I knew I'd get down-voted for saying it, and I've held my tongue in the past. But it's nearly every article about China now. These sardonic off-the-cuff remarks. It's so accepted here, and it shouldn't be. So I'm calling it out.

[seanmcdirmid]

Just to be factual, China outside of Taiwan still lacks the ability/technology to fab a modern microprocessor using a competitive process. Fab technology is incredibly restricted, not just by governments but the companies themselves.

China doesn't export CPU processors, they import from Intel like everyone else. I believe there is a fab in Singapore, but I'm not sure what generation they are at. There is a testing facility in chengdu, at least.

[igravious]

Intel, though globally important, are not the only game in town.

This article suggests that there are numerous Chinese companies trying to make the grade: "Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC), Shanghai Huali Microelectronics (HLMC), Shanghai HuaHong NEC Electronics Company (HHNEC), Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing and Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (ASMC)"

http://qz.com/72542/china-just-surpassed-the-us-in-semicondu...

> "McKinsey’s proprietary research indicates that more than 50 percent of PCs, and between 30 and 40 percent of embedded systems (commonly found in automotive, commercial, consumer, industrial, and medical applications), contain content designed in China,"

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/high_tech_telecoms_internet...

> "Compared to 2008, consumption of semiconductor materials in North America is down $250 million to $4.74 billion, while in China consumption has shot up 42% to $5.07 billion."

[seanmcdirmid]

Sure, they are putting out cheap low-end chips that are getting used.

But they are still way behind on process. I believe its 35-50 nm, while Intel, the Koreans, and the Taiwanese right now are at 14 nm. If you are building the world's fastest super computer, you are putting Intel or similarly fabbed chips in there...they are not putting their own chips in!

Then there is also the problem of having their own designs to fab. There was a big scandal a few years back where the "native microprocessor" was actually based on an old design that some professor stole from a company in the states!

[ajross]

Just to be clear, I didn't read that as a statement of abstract capability but of fact. China (still the second largest economy in the world by a large margin, btw) is not, in fact, capable of manufacturing leading edge microprocessors. They just don't have the fabs, nor industrial knowledge to build them.

So if they want a supercomputer right now (or frankly at any point in the coming decade or so), they need to do it with chips fabbed in the west. So restricting "export" of that technology back to the west does seem kinda funny to me. No?

[meric]

China is the country with largest economy on a PPP basis. They cannot produce leading edge microprocessors but they can produce leading edge supercomputers. They built a supercomputer using their own chips in 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/world/asia/china-unveils-s...

IMO the restriction on exports at this point isn't too important besides notifying everyone else, including you, China can produce chips and can produce supercomputers too.

[igravious]

By at least one accepted metric China is the largest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy[*]

That metric is Gross Domestic Product by Purchasing Power Parity, or GDP (PPP). The IMF and CIA Factbook use it as a measure. Economies can be measured in many ways. By GDP alone, which I agree is the more common measure, China is not the largest -- though all indicators point that it soon will be by this measure also.

http://www.euronews.com/2014/12/09/the-american-century-come...

* Wikipedia data drawn from IMF.

[sampo]

> China (still the second largest economy in the world by a large margin, btw)

What is the largest?

[seanmcdirmid]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

The EU if you count it as a country, otherwise the USA.

[sampo]

Ah, what a difference nominal vs. PPP makes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28no...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP...

[meric]

I think the use of PPP is more appropriate than nominal - the former measures how much goods and services the country produces while the latter measures how many US dollars those goods and services sell for. A hamburger is a hamburger - Last time I tried it actually tasted better in a Chinese McDonald's than the Aussie counterpart.

[seanmcdirmid]

A hamburger at McDonalds often costs more than in the states. Many things are more expensive here. You want to drive a car? Ah, that will be $60k please. We spent 120 RMB on a bottle of shampoo and conditioner last week..I told my wife that is almost $20!

[meric]

You're in Beijing - that's like someone living in NYC complaining US house prices are $0.9m each. Accurate for where he lives, but cannot be generalised to the entire country as a whole, where median US house price is only $0.2m each. Things are a lot more affordable out in places like Foshan (where I had my Maccas).

EDIT: Reply to below:

You're talking from your Beijing experience and I'm talking from my visiting relatives in Shunde experience...Maybe it'll be hard for us to agree. Rents, Food, Public Transport, Clothing, Education are all quite cheap compared to the U.S. and those goods are what enable people to carry out their day to day lives. Walmart made-in-china goods are naturally cheaper in China than in U.S. House prices, Car taxes, Luxury taxes are part of government policy in managing monetary policy and exchange rates with the U.S. and has as much relevance as the nominal GDP - not much when you're measuring the average person's income and the goods and services they can purchase. And remember, China's population is several times that of the U.S.

[Tiksi]

It's a comparison of nations' economies, and from the wikipedia article on PPP above:

  It is however limited when comparing the size of national economies; GDP PPP is designed to compare the purchasing power of the citizens of one country against those of another country rather than the total size of national economies.

So it doesn't seem appropriate for comparing the size of national economies.

[ajross]

Uh... The subject at hand is international trade. How exactly is PPP not literally the worst possible metric for comparing the economies?

[meric]

The subject at hand is whether a very large economy can produce certain goods. If we're measuring in goods, we should use PPP.

[sampo]

> A hamburger is a hamburger

But by selling a hamburger in the US, you can buy several hamburgers in China...?

[fru2013]

>The suggestion that they'd be banning the export of Intel processors is dumb.

Why is this a dumb suggestion? The article does not specify, nor does the PR release by china.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/sci/2015-08/01/c_134469932...

[fspeech]

The article says the control threshold is similar to the U.S. Does the U.S. ban export of Intel processors? Why isn't confusing supercomputer with microprocessor dumb?

[l33tbro]

The observation that China needs to qualify for tech credibility is just stupid, not racist.

[cscurmudgeon]

FYI, China is still not the largest economy in the world.

[meric]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)

Right behind the European Union.

[Frozenlock]

That doesn't answer my question.