So the Huawei Ascend 920 is produced by SMIC on a 6 nm process.
I always thought sceptical of the US sanctions, but that they backfire so fast is insane.
Out of China's perspective it might make sense to take out the wests AI capabilities soon.
I always thought sceptical of the US sanctions, but that they backfire so fast is insane.
Out of China's perspective it might make sense to take out the wests AI capabilities soon.
I live in a country which has experienced some hard and soft embargoes over the years, and let's look what has it done.
- We wanted to buy drones, and denied. Now we are one of the biggest drone manufacturers in the world.
- We denied air defense systems. We are developing a whole arsenal of missiles and rockets now, incl. standoff/cruise missiles.
- We denied planes. Our 4.5th generation fighter program got a great speed boost.
- We denied advanced naval technology. We built stealth ships, fast coastguard boats and all navigational systems which goes inside them.
- We denied optical pods for drones and aerial vehicles. We built our own in 6 months.
etc. etc...
Sanctions and embargoes are the biggest catalyst for a country to advance their tech at tremendous velocity.
That highly depends on the size and natural resource available to the country.
The Ford Motor Company's dealings in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union significantly helped the adoption of mass production in those countries.
Typically it actually looks like the opposite. When I look at, eg, North Korea or Iran - if I were going to try and make them wealthy it is mostly internal policies that are the problem and not external ones.
If North Korea set itself up with single digit % company and income tax combined with a strong rule of law, local education programs and a liberal economy it would barely matter what sanctions were imposed on them. A tide of money would flow in and they'd eventually be wealthy under their own power anyway if not. Although it isn't obvious why anyone would sanction a small well run country; there is a correlation between sanctions and incompetent governance.
- firstly, media attack ("they're dictatorship!", "they're genociding someone", etc), preparing population for stricter measures
- secondly, color revolution, which, if successful, puts puppet malleable government in power, and makes the country ultra-poor (most of the countries, where color revolutions staged by US/West succeeded, became significantly poorer)
- if color revolution didn't work, there's always an option to just bomb the country, because it's always ignored if all the international treaties and laws are ignored if USA or Israel bomb any other nation.
If so, do you think it makes a difference that Turkey is a NATO member, and on (relatively) good terms with the Western powers?
For all the ideological differences and geopolitcal nervousness I don't think the US or EU see themselves as potentially fighting against Turkey, and so they don't feel the need to go to the trouble of strict sanctions or sabotaging local tech.
In recent years the relationship between Turkey and Western countries has been OK-ish (though far from stellar, see the S-400-related tensions or the French-Trukish tension in the Mediterranean).
But if you look at it on a longer perspective, the relationship used to be very tense, first there was the Cyprus crisis leading to pretty harsh western sanctions on military equipment, and then the cold war between Turkey and Greece in the Aegean see, with occasional real fire air combat and casualties.
Turkey’s defense advances took decades and came with major setbacks
Not to mention many NATO incompatibilities
Just look at all the other sanctioned countries
And if you want to look at other sanctioned countries, just look at how NK or Iran's industry fares compared to their economic peers …
It took me ~10 seconds to figure out the guy is Turkish and talking about Turkish defence industry.
Other countries like Iran however, do develop their own drones because of sanctions
Huawei was going to work on GPUs anyway, SMIC was going to fab chips anyway. How much of the total GPU compute is the result of increased investment after sanctions, and how much was already planned? And how does it compare to the alternative of importing Nvidia GPUs for the same amount of money?
Unless Huawei is getting better performance per dollar than Nvidia, this is them implementing a costly workaround, which is the point of sanctions: increasing cost.
With sanctions they get free money to develop better chips.
== sanctions backfire
Also the money the spend on top is mostly domestic. They can build some more powerplants to run less efficient chips. They can pay their workers and their developers to build it.
Making it cost more is keeping them from being as competitive — which is the point of sanctions.
Huawei already designed and developed its own chips before sanctions, and SMIC is developing their next node before sanctions.
Whether sanctions work or not is another matter
Sure, but China has started dumping a lot of money into competing with ASML as a result of the sanctions. And no, they are not going the super complicated route of firing lasers at drops of tin to get EUV. They are trying to sidestep that costly complexity, and if they are successful they'll be providing equipment to the top chip producers (around the world or just their own).
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/wh...
It's funny how it's impossible to find English coverage of this book :')
Guess what a telco equipment company is good at :p
The western media has a narrative with many real evidence to support the narrative so most western people take it for granted. But the reality is more complicated. For many engineer money is an important factor for sure but maybe not all.
https://community.cadence.com/cadence_blogs_8/b/breakfast-by...
It has nothing to do with the size of anything.
Despite all the anti-EU propaganda in these parts, the entire AI stack is powered by us.
Things like ASML are the tattered remnants of the EU being a powerful force in this market. China might not be able to replicate ASML, we'll see. But if the EU can compete meaningfully with the Asians at semiconductor manufacturing that'd be a shocking development.
All modern semiconductors need ASML machines.
All modern AI is based on research by Sepp Hochreitner.
The www is based on work done by CERN.
Most factories are run on Siemens automation systems.
We've moved on from lower-level concerns like building chips to a higher level, directionally controlling the way economies and societies develop.
Economic growth is an enabling factor for a higher level metric, quality of live. It succeeds spectacularly there.
You've got a bunch of poor people starving and set up a factory to produce a couple of bombs and pull some farmers off the land to have them march up and down the parade grounds. That isn't going to put more food on the table. Sure it might be a good idea regardless because being invaded sucks, but it isn't wealth creation without a very creative understanding of wealth. A society can't be better off without creating new wealth.
I suppose there could be some sort of plowshares-to-swords program where they build tractors and bulldozers that can be repurposed into military gear on short notice. But I havn't heard of that working anywhere before and my read of modern militarys is that the gear gets pretty specialised to military use. And the soldiers need to actually focus on soldiering rather than being part timers.
At some level a country needs an army because without one they don't get to have an economy, but it is a dead weight in terms of prosperity. Military expenditure comes directly out of what people would otherwise use to improve their own lifestyles.
If the only thing you needed to make cutting edge chips were some machines from ASML every country in the world would be making their own chips right now.
China built their own.
I've gotten to the point where I no longer even listen to people who underestimate the Chinese. Whatever points they're making can be safely ignored. Indeed, strategic sense demands we ignore them. The time for underestimating the Chinese is long past. That's not the reality we live in any longer.
Now it is more like throwing pebbles at someone who is stronger while hoping he doesn't come over to punch back.
I've seen this argument before with some pro-China voices and it's the same circular reasoning in arguments like Roko's Basilisk. It is is futile and unwise to oppose China's ascent at the risk of incurring their future wrath when said rise is inveitable, better that we pledge loyalty now for future favours". It's nothing more than intimidation.
The difference is that future of China's hegemony is far from inevitable. They are strong, but they're not stronger just yet. Their innovation hasn't really broken through in red oceans when paired against competive incumbents, and they are just as prone to hype bubbles as we are. And their massive investment is coming at the cost of a resulting maligned consumption balance and destructive price wars. So there still moves to be made that can radically alter the trajectory of events.
Which argument is right really depends on a realistic evaluation of the situation.
To me I just have a bad gut feeling when we (the west) force China to oppose us.
I also had a bad gut feeling when we outsourced our technology there. We let the buy our companies while China only allowed joint ventures with state controlled companies.
Why didn't we pick up the fight 10 years earlier if they are so evil that we cannot let them win?
If I would have to bet my money I would bet it on China.