China Is Building an Open National Chip Plan Around RISC-V
hpcwire.com
hpcwire.com
Small countries can only partially achieve this level of independence, but all countries should try. I think the world is even more beautiful with more diversity.
If you draw a chart of percentage of all humans alive who die in war, there is a sudden dropoff around 1900.
Wasn't WWI the first war in which more soldiers died from trauma than disease?
I should note that much later in the Eastern empire, after a long period of wallowing in inflation, corruption, and an ineffectual army, Anastasius I reformed the monetary system by refining the purities (and thus supplies) of coinage, which allowed him to clamp down on the state's accounting and tighten up the army.
If anything, interdependence creates more destructive wars because countries group themselves into (global) blocs who now go to war.
This is often repeated, and I believed it myself in the past as being self-evident, but the Russia/Ukraine war has changed my mind. Russia was selling gas, the west was buying gas. Other countries produced e.g. iPhones and Russians were buying them. It seemed to be a classic case of a situation where everyone loses if there's war, but yet the war happened anyway.
And seeing how Russia has been severely weakened by Putin’s imperialist tendencies, other countries would be wary of repeating the same thing.
The middle east exploded after the Arab Spring, and major conflicts are popping off in Ethiopia, Sudan, and now Niger.
As long as China is a credible threat Taiwan will never declare independence. That doesen't mean there is a real of an actual invasion as long as everyone knows that.
I think you will find that this was an actual example until out outright invasion was made, because since 2014 the EU was buying gas (to the major benefit of Germany) while the US and UK who signed the Budapest Memorandum looked the other way in order to keep 'business as usual' going in the EU while hand-waving about the whole thing.
Putin made the grave mistake that the West would capitulate to this once more and Kyiv would fall, instead it finally unified the West to finally see the threat for what it always was (Russia has invaded or outright attacked nations 7 times since '99).
What you saw was the deterrence taking place, you probably just didn't realize how detrimental it was because you measured it's success in iphone sales rather than total casualties and displaced people (look at how Syria kicked off the current diaspora out of the ME and Africa).
Personally speaking, Globalization did work to a limited extent for a while but the issue is that the Western powers enabled their corps to hallow out their domestic manufacturing Industry/workforce and benefit from labour/regulatory arbitrage and allowed it to have record profits: it ultimately funded these despots who felt all to comfortable relying on Western greed and fecklessness when it came to geopolitics.
Cheap trinkets from China aren't worth living in a World with a nuclear capable despot thinking he can kick off WW3 if we don't indulge them at anytime because we rely on them for a broken supply chain, and it never was worth it despite the ability to rationalize this Stockholm Syndrome so many are under.
The Chinese and US economies are far more inter-dependent and the Chinese understand that war is unthinkable -- are are very annoyed at Russia.
The Western response to Ukraine has also put China off the notion that they could quietly take Taiwan without anyone making a fuss.
But this is very far from RISC-V.
China has long since (5+ years) taken everything from RISC-V initially done in the West that there is to take. The ISA specification itself, gcc and llvm and Linux and things like that. It is far too late to change that. They have local git clones.
At present China is contributing more to RISC-V than anyone else. For example they are doing almost all work on Android and all the parts that go into that, including things such as the Chromium browser.
All their improvements go into public repositories that the rest of the world can access.
Companies such as WCH and THead and StarFive are also at the forefront of RISC-V cores and chips that normal people can actually buy. WCH's $0.10 microcontrollers are really great (as are their $0.50 and $1.00 chips). THead's C910 core is not only in the highest performance RISC-V SoCs (TH1520, SG2042) and boards you can buy right now, it is also open source (https://github.com/T-head-Semi/openc910) with a permissive license so anyone can audit it, or take the design as a starting point. StarFive's "Dubhe" core will probably be available on SBCs in the next 6-12 months, and will be similar to Rockchip's RK3588, currently the fastest ARM chip available on SBCs.
'We' as in the US, sure,I'm sure the US backed this as much as they have because of projected earning in supplying mainland Europe with natural gas as opposed to Gazprom. Europe however was incredibly reliant on Russia, even though N. Africa and the Middle East could offset the demand in time it was something that could only be done with such a drastic as this took place with the US filling the gaps in between.
As for teh US v China dilemma: personally speaking that has come at too great a cost, the fact that they black-mailed the West during COVID for PPE shows that Xi will not consider them as equal partners, and will do anything to disrupt them if he feels it is in his best interest. China ha a myriad of advantages of other nations because it was the nation the West outsourced most to for high tech to low tech. There is no question that this will be a hard tranistion, but it is one that has to be made: Evergrande collapsing was 2 years in the making, everyone knew from the outcry from domestic retail side that it had gone belly up and instead of trying to rectify the situation, tear gas and beatings were used to quell uprisings of it and other banks. I fully expect more inflation from China to be made to prop up there already crumbling economy and unless the West wants to remain in this subservient role for critical goods it must act now when China is more focused on Domestic issues than at any other time since the Industrialization of the mainland.
I don't profess to know every minute detail of the chips you mentioned, but if it is in fact in the public domain and the Inflation Reduction act has made enough concession to make fabs in the US with international partners (LG/Samsung) than the only thing waiting is to put this all in motion. Economies of scale will be an issue, and perhaps this will be the reason we revert the planned obsolescence built into every device coming from China. That alone would be a step in the right direction in my view.
I'm not in or from the US. I did once (2019-2020) spend 11 months officially living in the US, though even that was broken up by two 1-2 week trips to Christchurch and Moscow.
When I say "we can quickly get gas and oil from elsewhere" I am, obviously, meaning "we" as Europe. Sure, it was a scramble, but it was done, and contrary to Russian propaganda a year ago, no one in Europe went cold last winter.
> I'm sure the US backed this as much as they have because of projected earning in supplying mainland Europe with natural gas
I don't really care why the US tells themselves they are backing Ukraine. It's simply the right thing to do.
Firstly because Ukraine has been making a very serious attempt to follow the paths of countries such as Poland and Czechia who were lucky to get leaders of the calibre of Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel right after the end of the Soviet Union. Ukraine wasn't so lucky in the 90s. It's even harder to do now, but they've been doing it, electing better leaders, rooting out corruption, choosing their own friends. That's what Putin can't stand.
Secondly, and more importantly, because Putin should have been called out for his shit a lot sooner, not appeased. It was hard to do something about the Chechan wars as that is internal to Russia, but serious steps should have been taken after the invasion of Georgia in 2008, at the latest.
That doesen't mean that 10 additional wars wouldn't have happened otherwise. It's a bit like saying that safety standards don't matter because people still die in car crashes.
Of course, you're right in a way. For the system to work you have to assume that states are governed by rational actors and that their citizens prefer having access to iPhones and other foreign goods (and not destroying their economy in general) over "fighting nazis/homosexuals/{insert idiotic thing}"...
Russia's current account surplus finally became negative in the last few months so if that continues and their currency continues crashing, hopefully living standards for ordinary Russians will start decreasing at a faster pace and maybe they'll start thinking about regime change.
Then again 2x more deaths during a single years than throughout the entire 10 year long war in Afghanistan didn't bother them to much so who knows...
Been saying the same thing myself. Every major company should own their own tech, media, etc stack. They should ban all competitors until they have their own homegrown champion. When india banned tiktok, I praised it thinking india will also ban facebook, google, twitter, etc in order to establish their own social media and tech ecosystem. Instead, the indian leadership just handed their social media space to facebook. China talked big about developing their own operating system, but seems to have limited it only to the public sector while microsoft, google and apple dominate the private sector. And lets not get started with the EU. Even though it's not a country, but the lack of participation by any european country in any major tech development of the past few decades is embarrassing.
> Small countries can only partially achieve this level of independence, but all countries should try.
Small to mid sized countries should form blocs of some kind to achieve some kind of independence.
> I think the world is even more beautiful with more diversity.
Exactly. What I despise are those who claim to support diversity while demanding everyone speak the same language, adhere to the same 'values', partake in the same culture, etc.
Sure there's economies of scale. But @ some point you get diminishing returns, where many-billion $ investment is needed to eek out another few % of margin.
And if latest tech is too high a bar: older process nodes are simpler / cheaper. No reason a country of 10M+ can't have a few of their own to manufacture uC, automotive chips, jellybean stuff like opamps, etc. And don't forget supply line issues like shipping IC's across the world just to package them. Just wasteful.
Having only the very latest tech made elsewhere, would be a good start.
Agree with 2/3/4 of OP. Not always possible, but should be tried.
Why won't the US?
I truly become the time for decoupling from China has come. It will require a massive economic cost. China's economy will suffer greatly and many millions will be prevented from overcoming poverty.
And, it's worth it. It's absolutely necessary to ensure our country's security. We just can't depend on an adversary for critical goods.
This feels like economic policy from the 18th century. The decline of mercantilism and expansion of free trade ushered in modern global prosperity. Tariffs, protectionism, and trade wars still exist, but nothing like what you're suggesting. It's not just China's economy that would be affected - the developed world lives on cheap foreign goods, and any politician that suggests sacrificing that much quality of life for "security" wouldn't last long.
The majority of the world consider their quality of life depend on stuff like jobs, housing, healthcare and childcare, not having cheap e-waste.
Sure, it's nice that now I can afford to watch 4k movies beamed wirelessly to my phone which is a powerful computer in my palm, while I'm on the toilet in my tiny apartament, but I'd rather be able to afford a bigger apartment and be contempt with older shiny tech.
I'm not against free trade between nations, I'm against imbalanced free trade. We're trading with partners who are on the opposite spectrum of labor laws, environmental laws, etc,. making local workers/companies unable to compete in the race to the bottom, costing a lot of working class jobs and environmental damage be x10 except not in our back yard.
They don't have to be. Speaking of toothbrushes, a lot of cheap stuff can be made in the west. For example my local DM (European version of CVS/Wallgreens) is full of toothbrushes made in Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, and one time I even got an US made Oral-B which I loved but can't find anymore, all costing not significantly more than the toothbrushes made in China.
Plenty of cheap stuff in my house is made in the west as well: my plastic garbage can is made in Switzerland, my plastic AeroPress and its paper filters are all made in the US, the list could go on.
Till the early 00's I could buy Blackberries, Siemens, Nokia and Ericsson phones made in their respective home countries, while not costing more than Chinese made flagship phones cost today adjusted for inflation and purchasing power.
The mass offshoring of manufacturing to China mostly benefits the shareholders as they can pocket the savings since obviously they aren't passing them down to the consumer if Chinese made goods cost nearly as much as those made in wealthy developed countries.
I'm not against free trade, but tariffs should have been left in palce to level the playing field and tariffs only would have hurt corporates profits and executive compensation, not working class prosperity which was at an all-time high before the mass offshoring of jobs.
Disruption to trade with China would affect prices in proletarian supermarkets in the short-term, which would be a huge problem when millions of Europeans (and their counterparts in other Western countries) are already complaining of inflation.
You write of having been able to buy European electronics at competitive prices, but that was long ago and Europe has already lost the whole production landscape that enabled such quality at competitive prices.
The struggling people who are struggling because their working class jobs were offshored and instead must find consolation in being able to only afford dirt cheap Chinese-made stuff? The irony is not lost on me.
Plus, most of peoples' biggest current expenses are education, housing and healthcare, not that a toothbrush costs $1.99 and not $0.99.
>Disruption to trade with China would affect prices in proletarian supermarkets in the short-term
"Oh look, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions".
Sure, now a trade disruption would suck, but my point was that we could have kept developing industrial capacity and jobs in the west and it wouldn't be this way if we haven't offshored so much manufacturing to China so quickly in the first place, chasing short term profits at the expense of everything else, especially since none of those profits went to the working class who's jobs were gone.
Other cheap stuff in the supermarket, like bananas, is basically tied to slave labor in those countries, but I can live without cheap bananas and not support slave labor.
If you think that, you are looking at things from an elite perspective. You might want to look at any national subreddit in the last couple of years and read some threads about inflation and how people are feeling the squeeze and having to deny themselves all kinds of ordinary things. As I said, this is not just toothbrushes, that was a mere example, it is almost every non-food product a person would have to buy.
Can u give the examples of the essential items that has to come from China?
> r
Please don’t do this on HN.
Until shit hits the fan, then it's a free for all
https://www.rfi.fr/en/europe/20200402-china-coronavirus-face...
I actually don't know why I'm supposed to hate China, or Russia I don't though. I understand these countries have problems but so do all countries. I think working for peace is the way to go, not fabbing our own chips and encouraging tribalism...
I truly feel deeply that the world we're moving towards will actually send us "backwards" and not forwards. We'll end up isolationists, all technology and economic progress will slowdown at a time when the developing worlds population is already declining quite rapidly, I don't think this will end well?
Agree with working together but many leaders don't see it that way, so it's best to remain realistic and be prepared for bad scenarios.
The reality is, America sent many things overseas to be manufactured because it was cheaper, and I don't really see this changing in the near future, at least at scale. If India starts producing chips that work just as well as American chips and if they're cheaper than what's available in the USA, you will be using Indian chips and American manufacturing firms will either have to work for cheaper (unlikely) or offshore as well.
Where I live, we sent fruit grown locally, halfway across the country to a market, and then we buy them back at a higher price, this is clearly the stupidest thing ever on so many levels, but economics is a bitch.
That's a long way off, still.
Just the other day, I spotted an India-made Arduino style board on RISC-V Exchange.
Followed the link, saw there were several flavors & revisions, and with a "buy" link below. So.. how much? "Please login".
So, some university-developed academia/student only thingie.
That's just pathetic. Meanwhile, I bought a made-in-China, 4-core board with decent GPU, 8GB RAM, lots of modern peripherals for ~€100, mass produced, 2 day shipping (Germany warehouse -> NL).
There's smaller boards + chips popping up left & right (like Milk-V Duo, BL808, a ~$0.10 uC, etc) from Chinese vendors. Not to mention high-end offerings.
Sure, India will get there. They'll have their fabs (if they haven't already some halfway large/modern fabs).
But the path from "we're gonna make our own CPUs" to having a mature, diverse, mass producing semiconductor industry with a matching local talent pool & investment capital, is a long one. Silicon Valley & Hong Kong / Shenzhen took decades to become the powerhouses they are.
India is taking their first steps on this path but they have a long way to go (but letting uni students tinker with RISC-V designs, is a good start :-).
If China starts making good RISC-V chips at half the price of the USA. I bet you will be seeing a lot of Chinese chips in the USA…
If China makes more better chips cheaper it will not be financially viable to do what you’re talking about.
Take a look at the state of automobiles which is not that liberalized unlike electronic manufacturing for some reasons.
Only one new car in the U.S. now sells for under $20,000 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mitsubishi-mirage-cheapest-new-...
If it becomes associated with Chinese computing, then it might face more sanctions and roadblocks in the US and Europe.
After all, an instruction set’s fabrication, tooling, software are far more valuable than any theoretical advantage of the instruction set itself. (For example, see how long x86 has been going).
The goal would be to leave China with an architecture that nobody else uses.
Google, Qualcomm, Intel, IBM, Samsung, and nVidia are among[0] the RISC-V organization's many members, who have already collectively invested billions of dollars in the technology. At this point, telling the tech industry to stop using RISC-V would be like telling them to stop using Linux.
They'll just sanction the products containing chips from particular fabs instead.
They currently sanction on all sorts of arbitrary lines, for example memory bandwidth
[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/nasa-has-chosen-these-cpus-to-...
And given that the west either really needs AI to be worth a damn (and a defendable advantage) or we're one step closer to the Chinese century or whatever dramatic thing were calling it...
Also, in this matter, China is not competing with the US. The US already lost out to Taiwan in semiconductor manufacturing. The idea that there is something magic about the US and no Chinese people could ever compete with us is at best very silly.
Also I did not say Taiwan is China. No idea where you got that?