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Comment by AsyncBanana | Hacker News Reader

China is still far behind modern lithography. It took ASML almost 2 decades to get from immersion DUV (and EUV prototypes) to commercial EUV machines.

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But isn't it easier to copy some existing approach than to create it from a green field? ASML tech is presumably highly protected, but China is also very good in spying, hacking etc.

Yes. But it's not as simple as just having access to ASML's ip. They have exclusive rights to all the components and inputs, which are also protected and are also hard to make.

It's a whole system that China needs to duplicate.

This stuff is really hard to copy. China basically had to put in all the cold era materials research along with getting up to speed on current tech, from scratch. They were/are always going to catch up because they have the resources to, but there are no shortcuts.

The patent system is very strong evidence that there are shortcuts. So many that we have laws designed to protect and incentivize version 1.

Sure, there’s some hard lessons along the way; but far, far, far fewer than figuring it out in the first place.

And this misplaced assumption about how China won’t be able to innovate when standing on the shoulders of giants (with you saying ‘are always going to catch up’) looks only at the last 100 years and forgets the millenia before it. The West is not magically superior.

There are just some things that China can’t access and they have to reinvent on their own. Like 50 years of intensive materials research that is locked away in a safe and access is heavily restricted. Yes, China could innovate by standing on the shoulders of giants if they had access to the giants, they simply don’t have access.

I struggle to imagine that all 50 years have been wholly blocked from all international research students. That seems highly implausible.

Edit: for a comparison, it took the Soviet Union 4 years to have their own Atom Bomb after the US dropped two.

Again, the Cold War and moon shots generated ALOT of data that the west keeps locked up very well. I don’t think we can really fathom today the resources they dumped into figuring things out, and how much we’ve been coasting on that work.

Are you intentionally invoking the same style of argument of Ancient Aliens and rejecting all public - that is, *in the open* work that thousands of scientists have done over the last 50 years and instead preferring to create a scenario where we invented everything 50 years ago and are slow-trickling it into the world?

Like, Independence Day style?

True but also catching up to an existing tech is a much different game than creating it from scratch. Hiring people who have the right knowledge can speed that up.

The core stuff is under heavy lock and key. I’m not sure China can hire people that know the whole process, let alone the bits and pieces they can’t easily figure out on their own. The tech seems to have been locked down by a few western countries, and it’s hard to find any holes in their secrecy.

I'm not sure how true this is but I've read in other threads that ASML employs many Chinese engineers, and also read other news that the Chinese state is paying engineers working abroad at companies like ASML alluring salaries to get them to work back home.

You can employ as many engineers as you want but if you compartilize them enough and separate key processes to a very small group of people (Dutch citizens or whatever, maybe military), you can actually protect the process as a whole.

It’s not like a nuclear bomb that even high school students can even figure out how to make without much help.

The thing is that an expert in the area does not need the detailed how-to guide/complete description of the process.

Few hints here and there can help to get over the key hurdles, with most other steps either a general knowledge for the experts, or analogues can be independently developed without too much trouble.

Yes, the result is not the same, but actually developing indigenous expertise is the key required component anyway,

China has a lot of bits and pieces of process but they are spending time to figure out how to put them together along with a few key locked up secrets that you just can’t get with smarts alone. They will definitely get there, but don’t be surprised if they come up with a very different solution because being derivative just wasn’t an option

Espionage

Nah, you watch too many movies, they openly hired former asml employees.

It's only a google away friend.

> https://dominotheory.com/taiwan-issues-first-national-securi...

Sure, and spent most of it experimenting with something nobody knew would work in production or not, and needed a lots of breakthrough ideas that are now known as the machines exist.

OK, China will do it in 5 years then.

This, these news organizations have no f'n clue. China this, China that, it's all part of the 10 billion China spends on b.s to feed the Americans that they are behind or they are useless and that they don't stand a chance....

China is on the verge of collapse walking the razors edge.

Yes. China is behind on some of the crucial technology that gives the West its advantage, but this framing that the country is on the verge of collapse is just not true.

Also recreating a know technology usually takes much less time even if you don't have access to the underlying tech.

Schrödinger's economy

https://thediplomat.com/2015/03/why-do-people-keep-predictin...

Does thediplomat.com also have articles on the historical depth of of the list of predictions that the USA will collapse? It is a far older and infinitely more pervasive phenomenon.

Is that so? I'd be delighted to review some examples.

I mean, it's possible that an economy, especially of a major nation, can be on the verge of collapse and that it can be pushing technical frontiers. It's even possible that pushing those frontiers can forestall or reverse the economic collapse.

There are certainly a lot of people who think the above applies to the US.

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