Intel pauses work on $25B Israel fab
theregister.com
theregister.com
That said, we should be somewhat worried about desperation-fueled endeavours.
I think this is how humans and maybe most living things work.
Motivation is not that easy to come by.
For example, Fourier Transform was there but no one use it because it is too slow and there was no urgency to use it until the nuclear testings were common place. In order to detect underground nuclear testing there was an urgency to detect the events using Fourier Transform and voila Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) was invented to speed up it up considerably without loosing the accuracy. Then we have Fast Inverse Fourier Transform and the rest is history.
Another great example was the need for robust command and control (C & C) during the Cold War. US military was looking for C & C infrastructure that can survive nuclear catastrophe and voila the Internet was invented. People keep denying this fact but since it's initially and fully funded by DARPA, it's kind of giving away the main motivations. The basic tenet of the Internet design is essentially to have a highly reliable communication in the face of nearly total or 99% infrastructure destruction. If I can recall correctly someone actually simulated the 99% infrastructure down scenario and the results US Internet is still working fine, and if someone know this report or publication please let me know the original source.
It's also a very common practices in many countries to have isolated and reliable nationwide network infrastructure for emergency usages for example disaster management purposes including military operations.
Israel is threatened by resource-constrained guerrillas, not well-funded / nuclear-powered military like Taiwan and South Korea are.
Further, resource constrained guerrilla/terrorist groups love valuable targets like a $25B factory that provides a critical input for a significant portion of the global economy.
If they were well-armed by the West, they'd be called a military.
> love valuable targets like a $25B factory
Until 7 Oct, Israel had proven more than capable of protecting its assets (at a cost). Since 7 Oct, it looks like they seek to do that once again (at a cost). I don't think megacorps are worried that much given none of the G7 really seems to care about those costs.
There's actually an argument to be made that we wouldn't even be having this conversation unless the Viet Cong existed. The Internet and modern distributed networks are a direct consequence of western intervention in SEA and the creation of counter-insurgency.
You and others are making the same mistakes as the USSR and others have when countering Islamic Insurgency.The USSR's underestimation of Afghan fighters was their downfall, it's why they called Afghanistan the graveyard of empire, and I would not be surprised at all If we see Isreal meet a similar fate because of this exact same ignorance. In fact I'd bet my entire net worth that is the outcome based on what I see currently. The insane confidence, as displayed by your comment is a great summary of this type of ignorance.
Taiwan has transitioned from an authoritarian regime under martial law (lifted in 1987) to a vibrant democracy. Regular, free elections have become a norm, and political power transitions smoothly.
Taiwan's economy has grown significantly, becoming one of the "Four Asian Tigers" with a strong technology sector. Companies like TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) are global leaders.
Taiwan has seen advancements in social issues, such as becoming the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage in 2019.
South Korea has also moved from a period of military dictatorship to a stable, democratic society with regular and peaceful elections.
South Korea has transformed from a war-torn country in the 1950s to one of the world's largest economies, excelling in technology, automotive, and other industries. It is home to major global brands like Samsung, Hyundai, and LG.
South Korea has made significant strides in education, healthcare, and quality of life. Its cultural exports, like K-pop and Korean dramas, have gained international popularity, enhancing its soft power.
Comments about comments being LLM generated are getting old pretty fast though.
Your complaint is basically that some countries in potential conflict zones ended up being economically successful.
(btw, Intel actually has a lot of production capacity in the US[1]. The US don't need Taiwan and SK intact for bare minimum survival in an unlikely event of a global thermonuclear war)
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat...
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si...
Related if you look at "(R&D) expenditure as share of gross domestic product (GDP)" the top are (https://www.statista.com/statistics/732269/worldwide-researc...)
1 Israel
2 S Korea
3 Taiwan
4 USA
People need to understand fabs are both skilled labor and automation intensive. Apart from that there are supplier ecosystems that only exist in those regions. Korea and Taiwan needed to have globalized export economies. Their education standards and culture are a good fit for scale manufacturing, both still had conscription military service. The labor at the time 80-90’s and currently is still highly competitive for their skilled labor force.
EU semiconductor is not a joke but the tools and wafer size are not state of art. I know EUV machine is a product of EU, but that moonshot tool is something that can only come out of a long dev government subsidized program like CERN and the bosson. They aren’t exporting that tool into the EU too it’s going right to Asia.
The EU is full of high living standards and well educated people but the semiconductor production is mainly serving local consumption (or local companies supply chains, automotive parts). EU does research but that doesn’t translate to at scale fabs.
EU gets protective and wants to secure local supply for their own tool vendors and needs to understand that smaller local machine brands cannot compete with the majors for the run of mill machines. EUV is a different story that thing is anomaly and power to them for following up on it.
Also strong labor organizations don’t attract capital. And semiconductor cannot take the month of August off.
US has capital and plenty of cheap land and cheap labor but still more expensive than Asia standards. Depending on state non existent labor protections and competitive environment permits. Not great education standards. Excellent skilled immigration. But still not leading in semi production especially with the old guard just keep losing. Still strong #2 though. And the ecosystem is nowhere near as integrated as Seoul. Like would you leave your hame family and friends in Oregon to startup a next gen Fab in Phoenix? No way. Geography isn’t doing US favors there for dynamism.
Oh I'm sure it was a few people staring at designs for the new campus only for one person to realize, "...but it could be a parking lot!"
[1]: https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/18/intel_israeli_researc...
On the other hand if they built something like that next to the fab I wouldn't call it a waste of money. It would be less than 1% of the budget to make things nicer for employees.
Good to see practical thinking overruling "designers" and their wankery. "Stop wasting money on useless crap and focus on your business" is advice that is rarely taken, unfortunately.
I understand geopolitics can change things as Israel is in the hot seat right now, but doing it regularly seems wasteful.
Then their successors kill the project to save the budget. They can also get well paid from their high level KPIs.
Win-win, right? As for the company, who cares? It is already too big to fail.
1. Getting loads of government incentives to build an office/factory in some locale.
2. Start the project, then when the winds change, leave it as a blight/eyesore for years without having any incentive to do anything about how you dropped a big turd in a community based on false promises.
I don't have a problem when companies change plans due to changing market conditions. I do have a problem when they don't clean up their messes in a timely manner.
Apple killing their car project does not, though, unless I missed something about them leaving half-built factories somewhere.
How many CEOs does that take?
you mean the desert was taken away from the planet and the planet is claiming it back? where will it go?
[1]:https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/us/arizona-water-rio-verd...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/us/arizona-water-rio-verd...
But yes Dubai possibly, Israel, and the like are also goners long term.
Drove through Be'er Sheva in 2019 while Hamas was sending rockets (earlier the same day I was there, not at exactly the same time) and would go back again without hesitation.
The tourism industry is effectively dead [1]. If your visit - even at the risk of losing a limb or death - can feed a single Israeli for a day, you must visit.
1. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240208-gaza-war-para...
- A significant fraction of your workforce are reservists who might disappear for months with little notice.
- Potential trade disruption due to Israel's highly controversial actions in Gaza (eg. Turkey halting all trade with Israel).
- Shipping disruption and increased cost due to Houthi attacks.
- Potential sanctions or BDS campaigns, like South Africa.
- Difficult to convince international employees to relocate to a conflict zone.
And about Kuwait, remember why we built up their aggressor Saddam.
Support of Israel goes back to JFK.
It used to be strategically important during the cold war when the US and the Soviet Union were fighting for influence. Egypt and Syria e.g. were aligned with the soviets. Israel as one example, was testing ground for western weapons against soviet weapons. The US got a lot of information out of Israel about those weapons and how to defeat them.
Weapon technology is still something important today. Israel and the US collaborate on anti-missile systems and share the testing results those systems are getting in the field. That's just one example. Americans follow Israel's tunnel fighting tactics as well. Israel has always had more human intelligence in the area and also shares that with the US.
The middle east is still important today. I guess there's oil. And as we can see shipping. Saudi Arabia that used to align with American interests has been looking in other places, has always been a somewhat questionably ally, and the stability of its regime is always a question. Egypt has been sort trending a little back to Russia but for the time being put in place. It's also not the stablest place given the Muslim Brotherhood had control and the army took over. Turkey is also becoming less US oriented. And that's practically Europe.
The US under Obama has tried to reduce its involvement in the region which indirectly led to the civil war in Syria, to Iraq aligning with Iran, and other movements. Bin Laden was from the region and so is/was ISIS/ISIL. It feels like the US "disconnecting" from the region would be a destabilizing move felt everywhere and other parties like China or Russia would fill in the vacuum.
I could understand Ukraine being more of an issue for Europe rather than the US but Taiwan? Without them the hottest sector in the US collapses. In fact, how much of the US current meteoric rise is due to tech vs the rest of the economy? Probably a decent chunk. Taiwan is holding some of the most important "cards" in the world.
>Support of Israel goes back to JFK.
Well you could make the argument that the US has been wrong since JFK and it is finally catching up to them. Its not the first time they have supported a state that is in direct contrast to its stated ideals.
>The US under Obama has tried to reduce its involvement in the region which indirectly led to the civil war in Syria, to Iraq aligning with Iran, and other movements. Bin Laden was from the region and so is/was ISIS/ISIL. It feels like the US "disconnecting" from the region would be a destabilizing move felt everywhere and other parties like China or Russia would fill in the vacuum.
Like it or not that has been the stated path of the US for two administrations now and will likely continue into the next one regardless of who is elected.
Russia needs Crimea because without it they have very limited access to the Black Sea, and by extension the Mediterranean and the Atlantic; their other coasts, on the Baltic and in East Asia, are not adequate substitutes. The Baltic ports in particular tend to freeze in the winter -- not good if you have global superpower aspirations.
In the case of Taiwan, look at a map of China. Although China is comparable in land mass to the US, their sea access is limited to an eastern coast enclosed almost entirely by the South China Sea / East China Sea. Look at all the countries on the other side of the Chinese coast: Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, South Korea, and of course Taiwan. The US has military and naval bases in most of them. In the case of Philippines, Japan, and South Korea, the US has a LOT of naval bases, notably in Okinawa, halfway between Japan and Taiwan. This is no accident. In the event of conflict, the US could easily blockade China. A quick glance at the map shows how critical Taiwan is to this calculation. If the US controls Taiwan, it owns a huge island (a.k.a. unsinkable aircraft carrier) staring down the middle of the Chinese coast. If China owns Taiwan, the east coast of Taiwan has direct access to the rest of the Pacific.
US geography is so OP that we don't realize how bad other countries have it.
(By the way, the other countries mentioned are also geographically strategic assets. Kuwait has 10 times more coastline than Iraq. Without Kuwait, Iraq has only a few ports available to ship out their oil, and no other ocean access anywhere. Israel also controls a huge chunk of the Middle East's Mediterranean coastline.)
The ideologues currently running Russia desire to have the Crimea for its symbolic significance -- as a means of projecting power, and of thumbing its nose at the West. And for their various internal narratives (Наш Крым and all that). Which gets a lot closer to the core issue of what the war is actually about.
It was never about Russia "needing" the Crimea in any meaningful sense. Any more than WW II was about Germany "needing" to annex the Danzig Corridor.
Russia does not actually need to extract oil and gas from Crimea, although it would be a nice bonus for them if they could. The main imperative is to prevent Ukraine from having it.
Once Russia captured Crimea, the "land corridor" to Crimea became a necessary next domino. Crimea's only source of fresh water is overland via Ukraine. Obviously the first thing Ukraine did when Russia annexed Crimea was turn off the taps. (Would you keep sending freshwater into enemy territory?) In order to maintain power in Crimea in the long run, it is necessary for Russia to invade enough of Ukraine to take over the freshwater canals that supply Crimea.
So no, Russia doesn't need the Crimea's resources either. It is however definitely very hurtful to Ukraine to not have access to those resources -- which speaks more to the true intent behind the annexation move.
It is necessary for Russia to invade ...
It isn't necessary for Russia to do anything at this point -- other than pick up its toys and go home.
But to get to the real point here - why do you keep defending the actions of a blatant 19th century-style imperialist bully, as if it's some kind of calm, rational actor?
That's just, you know, doing what it needs to do?
Putin is a greedy son of a bitch. This is not a defense. It is an explanation.
In particular -- Russia most certainly does not "need" to dominate its neighbors. It's just what the current regime feels it needs to do to maintain its chances of survival.
Big difference, as you say.
Political figures and other individuals with their hands at the levers of power, on the other hand, do.
Specifically when they keep saying "Russia needs [to do various awful things]" when referring to the desires of the current regime.
In the case of Russia, it is completely appropriate to refer to the regime by country name, since Putin has been in power forever.
Anyway, this is a useless tangent. It should by now be clear to you and anyone else reading what I mean, even if it was not initially clear.
Syrian Civil War started only 3 years after Obama took office, and I don't see any connection to Obama reducing our involvement, if that's what he did. The US funded Syrian rebel groups both secretly before the war (leaked later) and openly afterwards (the FSA), though this stopped when ISIS formed and they began defecting, then we built that coalition to defeat them.
Btw, Israel has never fought ISIS. We fought a war against the largest terrorist group in history almost adjacent to our supposed weapons-testing, anti-terrorism ally without them being involved.
Plenty of people disagree with you there
[1] https://timeline.intel.com/1974/the-beginning-of-intel-israe...
For what they can control, sure. Taiwan has a fair amount of geography on it's side though.
Israel is pretty stable and has better life expectancy than the US. Thanks to its technology Israel can be at war and be mostly unscathed.
Intel has been building in Israel since the 70s and has huge infrastructure here. A lot of its most innovative work originates from Israel. This isn't unique, pretty much every global company has major R&D in Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dov_Frohman
Founded Intel's R&D center in Israel in 1974. That was the first Intel R&D center outside the US.
And before you brigade me, I'm making no comments about the validity of those charges either way. I'm saying it's an obvious increased risk as an investor. It's possible that Israel becomes subject to sanctions or subject to increased international scrutiny or gets embroiled in regional conflict.
Those seem like business risks that might change the calculus.
Surely there’s places with better labour or logistics options.
Israel has a long history of semiconductor expertise. From Intel's first R&D office outside the US in 1974 to many others. Mellanox, Tower Semiconductors etc. There's a lot of know-how and expertise and Israel would typically be considered one of the top 10 (if not higher) countries in the world in this area.
https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/neal-notes/i...
https://www.diskmfr.com/unveiling-israeli-semiconductor-powe...
Governments, in general, tend to subsidize these sorts of initiatives and compete with other nations and states.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/corporate-responsibi...
They also had fabs in Israel already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si.... The paused one is Fab 38, which was to have been built alongside the existing Fab 28.
[EDIT] Removed an unnecessary digression.
now, about "ThrowawayR2" :/
it wasn’t an intelligent location