Comment by anon7000 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by anon7000 | Hacker News Reader

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Scale is definitely a huge part of it. China controls huge amounts of the earth’s (processed) lithium & rare earth metal supply: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-is-oversup...

On top of that, the US does not have very many lithium or rare earth metal mines or processing facilities relative to our demand.

But it’s hard to deny scale: the US is a populous country. But there are more than ONE BILLION more people in China. It’s foolish for us to expect to stay on the same playing field forever. The economies of scale and innovation you can accomplish with that many people is… a lot.

This was a fascinating article about specifically the robotics side of technology, touching on some of these points: https://semianalysis.com/2025/03/11/america-is-missing-the-n...

Part of the idea is that there are cities in China that have really strong positive feedback loops when it comes to developing new, cheap robotics tech. Whereas in the US, it might take weeks to order parts from suppliers in, you guessed it, China. It’s hard to compete with companies that have direct access to the supply chain and skilled workers right across the street, in an industry where lots of iteration and evolution is necessary.

> But it’s hard to deny scale: the US is a populous country. But there are more than ONE BILLION more people in China.

This is true for the US alone, but US+Canada+EU is on the same order of magnitude, all of which prefer a more-than-zero-trust situation.

Which is also very spread out, with an ocean bisecting. Not exactly "skilled workers right across the street" for most of that land.

not just an ocean, the various governments and visas make it hard to move people you need

Visas are a political human construct subject to change, not a immovable force of nature. The same visa keeping workers out, can always be removed or changed over night if desired to achieve the opposite effect: move masses of skilled people in. See operation paperclip.

Not just people, parts too. Importing parts from the USA to the UK often takes longer and has more paperwork than from China.

Also don't forget tolls / tariffs. Building products that relies on parts from different countries (at least from/to USA) reduces the margins compared to a unified Chinese market.

China is huge in area too. You don't have one billion people right across the street. Anything that is across the street is, by definition, a localized thing involving far fewer people, which you can totally have in US+CA+EU too.

If you look at historic locations of hyperinnovation there are bunch of different things. One of which is density of the activity and the supply chain. Imagine needing a new gearset for a robot, you roll down to Gear Set Alley looking for a used unit, you hit 4 different robot wrecking yards, explaining to 5 people along the way. They eventually point you over to machine shop that has modified an existing part into exactly what you are looking for.

You can solve in a day what might take you a day, what might take you 20 days, 3x the price and a lead time of weeks. These kinds of hyperfocused, super dense innovation zones have existed in many places across all of time.

A bit late, but I'll try...

This assumes that Gear Set Alley is near you. At >3km you'd go by car and the "meet people on the way" breaks down. At >100km you'd rather call them and miss the wrecking yards and other factories nearby.

In China, Gear Set Alley may easily be 1000km from you. Or it may be <3km from you, if you're lucky. The point is that China, taken as a whole, has no advantage over EU or US in geographical proximity. Certain regions may have that advantage, but that is totally possible in every country on earth (beyond a certain, very tiny minimum size).

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