[Escapado]

Naive question: Are the current (from what I have heard not very effective) export restrictions of HPC GPUs to china truly productive in the long run if the goal is to retain an edge? As in, to me it seems that it just fuels an expansion of domestic capabilities and in the car and solar sector my impression is that china had already proven that it can absolutely perform on par or even better in many different metrics compared to western countries, given time and pressure. So while these chips are not on par with current or even last gen GPUs, I would not be surprised if china would catch up and even have a much higher incentive to do so, now that other countries try to control their access to key technologies.

I am not saying whether retaining an edge is good or bad or that I have a different answer if one thought it was good. Just curious what you guys think.

[sho_hn]

I would not be surprised if most of us are running Chinese silicon a decade or two from now, unless China invades Taiwan, and I also think recent events have certainly spurned CCP tech strategy and accelerated this timeline.

There's a few hurdles for China to overcome first, most notably catching up on high-end manufacturing processes, but it's naive to assume that won't happen eventually.

For consumer and prosumer gear that they can get it done is already obvious, cf. people generally having no problem with buying DJI, BambuLabs or Anker.

[b112]

China will 100% invade Taiwan. This is why both parties in the US are spending so much to get domestic chip production running.

I would be astonished if the backroom deal wasn't "If you take Taiwan now, we'll have to stop you, if you wait until we're self sufficient, we won't interfere."

[neurostimulant]

No need to invade when all China have to do is to help the opposition party in Taiwan win: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8185e19l4o

[stogot]

This is the strategy for decades but it’s failed to produce results

[lossolo]

The demographic situation in Taiwan is collapsing. Taiwan is basically fully dependent on trade with China and so on. The Chinese are masters of long term strategy and patience and would rather use deception than a sword if possible.

[lossolo]

> China will 100% invade Taiwan.

Stop looking at China through a Western lens. No one knows what China will do, so this statement is false. Considering their history and culture, they will first use all other tactics to take over the island. They said they want to do it by 2049, and they could succeed without firing a single bullet, as the commenter below noted.

> I would be astonished if the backroom deal wasn't "If you take Taiwan now, we'll have to stop you, if you wait until we're self sufficient, we won't interfere."

None of the cutting edge nodes are, or will be, produced in the US by TSMC. They are all produced in Asia, and the fabs in US will be X years behind.

[xethos]

> None of the cutting edge nodes are, or will be, produced in the US by TSMC. They are all produced in Asia, and the fabs in US will be X years behind.

I don't doubt you, and I think you'll be right for some time.

I also think it's foolish to count out Intel. They're down, but so was AMD. More pointedly, this is not Intel's first time playing "This works or we go under"

[rchaud]

Intel won't be allowed to go under, that was part of the goal of the CHIPS act.

[b112]

Stop looking at China through a Western lens. No one knows what China will do, so this statement is false.

No, it is not. Do you know why?

It's an opinion, clearly. Clearly, as few claim to be prescient. Dismissing my opinion, because I am not psychic and prescient is a very, very strange thing to say and do. You may say "that won't happen, your opinion will turn out to be wrong", but you cannot say my opinion as a statement is false, unless you are claiming I am lying about my own opinion?

And really, it is exceptionally silly to say "No one knows what $x will do", because of course not it's the future. We're all employing prediction trees, when we offer opinions on future events. Saying "no one knows the future" is just plain silly in this case. What are you even trying to assert? That we should all just never use our life experiences, knowledge, to attempt to provide some idea of what may come? Absolutely absurd! All of what I've just said is also understood as part of normal discussions of the future, so please try to keep this in mind.

Because trying to invalidate opinion by saying "you can't tell the future" makes no sense

And beyond that, after you discount my opinion because you claim people cannot tell the future (eg, no one knows what China will do), you immediately provide your own rendition of "what China will do".

What?!

So presumably, what you really mean in your first paragraph is that only you may predict the future outcome of events? I suggest, and I mean this honestly, that you drop this weird tactic from future debates. You cannot invalidate opinion in this way.

Moving on, it is strange to claim I am using a "Western lens". Are you trying to claim that China is somehow a land of pure people, free of all aggression and expansionist drive? And which will engage in no warlike actions? Which will not use force when it suits them? Such a rendition of any grouping of people is truly bizarre, and it is the only possible way your statement may be read. It is also very strange for you to throw this in.

You seem to be using trigger words, and pre-packaged conceptualized methods in an attempt to invalidate things people assert or say. Throwing 'Western lens" around is an attempt at impinging my worldview, it is logical fallacy, an ad hominem attack.

Please drop these sorts of tactics. If you want to realistically refute something I am saying, just refute the specific thing. Don't use ad hominem attacks. Don't refute a method (opinions of future actions), then employ them yourself.

Back to the meat of it. Surprisingly, for China, you and I seem to agree here, for you claim that China will try to use other tactics. Not will, but try as in "first use all other tactics". No kidding, ya think? Everyone tries other tactics first. Look at how many years Russia spent trying to subvert the Ukraine, before invading.

So you're not disagreeing with me. Not one bit. Because when I say China will invade Taiwan, I know all of this. Pretty much everyone you talk to knows that China has spent decades trying to subvert and take over Taiwan via sneaky, tricky subversion of Taiwan's political system. This isn't news to anyone, they've been trying for decades and endlessly failed. They've already tried those other tactics. Forever. They've failed. Over and over again.

And no, they aren't closer than ever before. Not much has changed in this regard.

So my assertion is that all of that will fail, as it has failed for decades. And that, as I said:

"China will 100% invade Taiwan."

Back to TSMC. There is more to the world than TSMC. There are other FABs coming online. There will be more money spent. And that's the whole crux of my comment.

Because the US does not want a war with China, any more than China with the US. Yet the US absolutely, positively, will not give control of Taiwan to China ever, under any circumstances, as long as the very prosperity of the US depends upon it.

Not going to happen. Not via political means. Not via a direct attack. Not via invasion. Never, never, never.

China will never ever be allowed control of Taiwan, until the US no longer needs it.

And so yes, there is an understanding between the US and China. You and I and everyone very much should want there to be an understanding. We should all want the US to have all the fabs it needs.

Because the alternative is a lot of death and destruction.

The closest parallel is, if a country cannot feed itself, and its stomach is filled by the bread of another land? And you invade that land? You will immediately be at war.

Instantly

This is entirely the same. So you should very much hope I am correct.

[tangotaylor]

I think it will be effective. This stuff is hard. There used to be many competitors capable of the best process technology: TI, GlobalFoundries, Intel, IBM, Samsung, TSMC.

Canon, Nikon, ASML all used to have competitive lithography machines.

Now it’s just TSMC and Samsung at the edge, and only ASML supplies the latest lithography machines.

China will probably catch up quickly but the pace will be nonlinear and illusory. They will hit diminishing returns just like everyone else has.

They’ve probably stolen every bit of semiconductor IP they can through economic coercion or espionage.

All they can do now is out-innovate everyone else and that will take a long time. But who knows, their pace of advancement since Mao died has been impressive.

[ac29]

> Now it’s just TSMC and Samsung at the edge

Intel 3 has been shipping since last year and is only very slightly behind TSMC N3.

TSMC is almost certainly doing far more volume on their leading node though.

[trm42]

One interesting detail is that the Chinese have been improving their photography lens production and quality in rapid pace and cheap price.

The legendary Zeiss is producing the lithography lenses for ASML, so it looks like China is pouring lots of effort to photography lenses to bootstrap their lithography lens capabilities.

I don’t know about the other parts needed for chip fabbing but I kinda expect then to encourage and subsidize other technological fields related to it as well.

[sciencesama]

Smic is led by the person who spear headed tsmc !

[chrsw]

China is racing full speed ahead to win in all these tech domains regardless of export controls.

They will surpass us on chips just like they surpassed us on EVs. The leading edge of chip design is very complex so it will just take more time than EVs. But it is inevitable.

Even if China could get their hands on all the NVIDIA GPUs they wanted they would still try to make their own as fast as possible.

[1231231231e]

Sure, designing modern integrated circuits isn't easy. However it still is way easier than what you need to manufacture them. Design of digital integrated circuits is commonly more understood with information being readily available.

In theory you could gain the knowledge to design an early 1990s CPU at the logic gate level by reading some books and doing a bit of research, on the other hand actually manufacturing such IC would take considerably more effort.

[chrsw]

CPU design has come a long way since the 1990s. Superscalar designs, high speed memory interfaces, multi-level caches, out-of-order execution, machine level translation, JIT optimization, the list goes on. Just one feature of frontier high performance chip design is far more complex than an entire MPU from decades ago. And many of these techniques are IP protected. Which is of no concern to China. But here in the US it's a big reason why there hasn't been as much competition in this space, aside from the ISA cross-licensing agreements of course.

Design and manufacturing are both engineering problems. Throw enough people and money at the problem and it will get done eventually. What we're banking on in the West is by the time China catches up to where we are now we'll be on to the next thing. Always one step ahead. What I'm saying is, unless we refocus our society on STEM, those days are numbered.

[wuschel]

Thanks for your input!

Since you are from this domain:

1. Why will they master it? Because they dedicate their industrial strategy and hence resources to it like they did in the other technological domains and flood the market?

2. Is the only way out a strict decoupling from the Chinese market in these domains? Or would it be a strategy that involves protecting domestic industries with other levers?

[chrsw]

1. Why is because making advanced chips is an engineering problem, not magic. It's about motivation, resources and time. China as all three. 2. If we don't want to rely on China for critical technology we need to focus on our own values and education, which will take generations to realize. But that's what China did, so it's not impossible. Industrial and financial policy are useless if you don't have the cultural and intellectual inclination towards self-sufficiency.

[wuschel]

Thanks for your reply.

I understand that advanced chip making has been done, and is an engineering problem. By generations I assume you mean cohorts.

However, one must not forget the subsidy lever China is using to distort competitive advantage on a financial level. As long as we do not level the playing field in a strategic sense, we will loose on the market long term.

[trasirinc]

That's assuming they can keep pumping massive capital into every industry that it seeks to circumvent from bans and sanctions. But it appears they have very short runway these days. Just months after the initial tariffs/sanctions from US, Chinese government is enacting multiple tax raising schemes in September to try to stay alive. The first is the mandating that workers and employees cannot opt out of social security contributions. which is around 1500 yuan ($200) per month for one worker. for an average worker that makes 4000 ($600) yuan, it makes no sense. So many companies are deciding to layoff or close up in September. And workers are going back to countryside. The second is the landlord tax that is starting on September 15th. This is due to people not buying real estates anymore and renting instead.

[stogot]

Are you a local? What city?

[HAL3000]

Langley

[bb88]

We can look at history.

The US has export restrictions on certain computing devices to certain regimes which included the Sony Playstation 2, a gaming console from the double noughts [0]. Apparently the military thought it could be used to create nasty weapons. Two decades later and nobody cares whether a PS2 is shipped to Iran. We still track FPGAs I guess, though I haven't checked what's on the ITAR/EAR list in a while.

Embargoes typically work until the embargoees(?) develop the technology to build or acquire what they need. If AI is only a strategic advantage because of hardware alone, then yes. But Deepseek kinda maybe killed that idea. China has never been the first mover. They optimize. But it looks like today, AI embargoes to China will get the US months at most.

[0] https://www.pcmag.com/news/20-years-later-how-concerns-about...