Comment by tw04 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tw04 | Hacker News Reader

Let's all just come to a common agreement: there's no planet on which the US military allows Intel to die. Period. End of story.

Having a US based company with fabrication facilities on US soil is vital to national security and will be for the entirety of my lifetime and likely my grandchildren's lifetime (if I ever have any). For all the bluster of the investors wanting to chop Intel up: they will find a swift and full rejection from the government unless their plan includes selling the assets to another US firm.

TSMC building a fab in the US won't be "good enough" - the US military will not allow the security of our country to be in the hands of a foreign corporation.

Now whether Intel remains a dominant player? Who knows, but they aren't going anywhere. I wouldn't be even a little bit surprised if for instance the 3-letter agencies cloud contracts suddenly included a clause that all of their infrastructure must run on Intel CPUs.

I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying it's fair, but I don't see any other outcome.

I'd agree with you, but this has already happened when IBM sold its Fab [1] to Global-Foundries which is owned by Mubadala Investment Company from the U.A.E

IBM's Fab was on the DoD trusted foundry list [2] Slide 13, Intel's is not.

There's an article that already rang this alarm around national-security when IBM divested itself of its Fab. [3]

1. https://www.computerworld.com/article/2837426/ibms-chip-busi...

2. http://jteg.ncms.org/wp-content/files/documents/DoD%20Truste...

3. https://semiengineering.com/a-crisis-in-dods-trusted-foundry...

Intel does have government contracts today[1][2], however, so some aspects of that situation may have changed with time.

1. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-manufacturing/intel...

2. https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-and-chip-makers-including...

I agree with your assessment of Intel's role in US national security, though Texas Instruments also owns and operates chip fabs in the US [1]. They most likely aren't as sophisticated as Intel or able to create similar chips, but Intel most likely isn't the only source of chips in the US.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat...

If they're propping Intel up as their last bastion of chip superiority they've already lost. The US knows they need to defend Taiwan with the full weight of their military resources. This means war in the event of an invasion or takeover.

If the US loses influence over Taiwan and subsequently TSMC, they've lost. In this phase of global geopolitics, whoever controls the chips has the influence. You can't do anything without compute resources.

Interestingly, there was a time when Intel's Fabs were the industry's absolute best. They were far ahead.

How important is it, strategically, to have the most advanced process tech? As far as I know, military tech tends to lag commercial significantly.

Only so much as it leads to faster AI.

I think this is a good answer.

I'm not sure that I've personally bought in to the AI revolution, but it sounds like it's generally agreed to be the future.

At the same time, there is so much room for basic improvement in the defense space. I have a hard time believing 5nm vs 10nm is a serious problem when half the vetronics system is analog.

But yes, in a big picture strategic sense, AI capabilities seems like the area most likely to pose a serious risk by not leading the world in chip technology.

Old military tech also has a longer shelf life. There are lots of military installations that were built before the internet.

I don't think the military alone can sustain Intel's R&D division, which has proven to be lacking compared to the competition.

Honest question: don't we (the world, I am a brit) rely on China for rare earth metals for a lot of electronics (presumably including US Military applications)?

I know rare-earth metals aren't that rare and we could ultimately supply them locally but the lack of any open mines or refining setups is just as big a strategic hole as losing domestic Fab isn't it?

I am happy to be corrected.

There are already fabrication facilities in the US and I highly doubt that Intel's fabs would ever be decommissioned. They are far too valuable even if intel doesn't own them anymore.

Now, the US may lag behind top of the line fabrication tech (It already does). But it will never lose it's ability to fabricate chips.

For military applications, unless they start getting really into artificial intelligence (maybe they already are?) they don't need super advanced chips for most of their equipment. Simple micro-controllers are enough for most military applications.

Multiple branches of US military are pouring tons of money into AI/ML, so they definitely want to get in to AI.

The military doesn't need cutting edge foundries. They are a liability when you need robust ICs that can operate in extreme temperatures and radiation exposure.

This is true for Micron and it’s true for Intel. Strategically, the US needs these fabs.

This kind of protectionism will only worsen Intels efficiency and will drain taxpayers pockets. Why can’t people learn from all the instances where a government tried to micromanage and horribly failed in the mid/long run?

Who said anything about micromanaging? I simply said the government both won't let Intel fail, and won't let their assets be sold off to foreign companies.

It's easy to say "that's dumb" - but what's your alternative? If it includes "just buy CPUs from insert foreign entity" - that's a nonstarter for myriad reasons.

I don't know whether or not I agree/think it's a good idea, but I think you are correct.

There is no way the USG will let Intel fail.

> Who said anything about micromanaging? I simply said the government both won't let Intel fail, and won't let their assets be sold off to foreign companies.

Internal information on stuff we don't know about, especially apropos of ring -1 (or even lower if that's even possible), will never leave US soil.

I don't see micromanagement, I see them getting giant R&D grants and contracts to fulfil US army strategic objectives. A fab owned by US nationals, on US soil, with processes that aren't obsolete.

I think that's an important objective. I'm not sure what other way there is to fulfil it, other than spend even more taxpayer money funding greenfield US chip industry

If you maintain that infrastructure for the sake of national security you are willing to pay a premium. The problem isn't government intervention because that can be done properly.

The bigger problem is that Intel is a company that both designs CPUs and manufactures them. The government isn't actually interested in Intel's CPUs specifically, only the domestic manufacturing capability. Intel has to be split up before the government can get what it wants.

>Why can’t people learn from all the instances where a government tried to micromanage and horribly failed in the mid/long run?

Counter example: Central banks are making lots of money available but the governments are not using it to employ people (either directly or indirectly) so it just fuels a long term asset bubble without achieving the desired economic growth.

This is very US-centric view. Most countries in the world don't have chip fabrication facilities in their country and they do just fine. Sure, US is currently a superpower whose influence is felt across the world so having chip manufacturing locally is very important, but in a scenario where US would lose some influence that would no longer be an issue, same as it is not an issue for Canada, Germany or Russia.

> Most countries in the world don't have chip fabrication facilities in their country and they do just fine.

I don't think that Huawei is doing is doing just fine.

You have to think about scenarios where countries are opposed to the US for one reason or another.

The Patriot Act being renewed for 6 months and thus putting Cuba in the embargoed countries even more than they already were should be a good second example.

Canada and Germany aren't bothered about it because they have allies that ARE worried about it.

Taiwan isn't under Chinese control, but if there was an escalating situation, you would assume that it would fall under Chinese control VERY quickly.

Up here in Canada, there is no need for fabs as long as the US has them. Canada has no real choice but friendly relations with the US (geography forces this), the upside is that many of the strategic resources belonging to the US are available to Canada.

The EU is worried about it to the tune of 145bn EUR...

https://www.eetimes.eu/eu-signs-e145bn-declaration-to-develo...

So is China: https://www.tomshardware.com/features/zhaoxin-kx-u6780a-x86-...

> As such, China began an initiative to build its own processors back in the early 80's that eventually evolved into the "Made in China 2025" campaign that has the goal of producing 70% of the chips used in China by 2025.

That should be a pretty easy goal for them to hit, right? Just buy the chips that are manufactured at TSMC.

TSMC doesn't design chips, which is the stated goal. China wants China-designed chips, not just "China" manufactured chips.

(ignoring that TSMC is Taiwanese and not currently under PRC rule but is instead de-facto independent and mostly internationally recognized as being independent...)

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