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It's history repeating. After ww2, Japanese electronics was the cheap stuff like we perceive Chinese products as today. During the 70s Japan caught up and got r

It's history repeating. After ww2, Japanese electronics was the cheap stuff like we perceive Chinese products as today. During the 70s Japan caught up and got ready to overtake in certain fields. Surprise. Than this repeated with south Korea. Now China is getting ready. And every time it's the same pattern. First it's "hah look they make these cheap inferior copies" then quality improves and gets on par so it changes to "well they just copy our products and then sell them for cheaper because labor costs are much lower" and then when they finally start to innovate and excel everybody is super surprised cause it was just stupid Japanese/Korean/Chinese copying our technology without really understanding it so how could they possibly make something on their own? (yes, obviously not everybody, but this is pretty much a simplified/exaggerated version of the overall sentiment)

writepub 7y ago
Typically, India is 10-15 years behind China. India is currently undergoing the same software boom that China went through 15 years ago (with Baidu, Tencent, ...). Hardware manufacturing is now moving to India, and India already has a competent (though currently behind US, China) chip design. It is only a matter of time that India also starts making it's own [chips, hardware, software, services, devices]. And I bet a repeat of the exact same reactions from the west.
- 886 7y ago
  It has started happening already. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/06/16/trade-war-india-hits-u-s-more-tariffs/1471140001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/06/16/trade-war-in...
- skissane 7y ago
  India has the advantage over China that it has a much friendlier relationship with the US and other Western countries than China has. There is a lot of national security concern about Chinese companies like Huawei having market share in sensitive sectors such as telecommunications infrastructure. An Indian equivalent to Huawei would be unlikely to face the same sort of concerns.
  - dis-sys 7y ago
    > An Indian equivalent to Huawei would be unlikely to face the same sort of concerns. Learn history. When Japan's semiconductor industry did extremely well back in the 80s, it forced US to take actions under the name of national security [1]. Do you seriously believe that india's relationship with the west is better than the one enjoyed by Japan back in the 80s? [1] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3014531/lessons-old-trade-war-china-can-learn-japan-experience https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3014531/le...
    - skissane 7y ago
      Japan was an economic competitor to the United States, but not an ideological or military competitor. China is all three. Even at the height of US-Japan economic competition, they remained military allies, and Japan and the US both had democratic political systems. China and the US view each other as military competitors, and China's state ideology (that democracy is unnecessary for economic development, maybe even an obstacle to it) is diametrically opposed to that of the US. By contrast, while India may in the future become a serious economic competitor to the United States, it shows no signs of being (or becoming) an ideological or military competitor. While the US and India don't have a formal military alliance like the US and Japan have, the US is very much interested in selling military equipment to India [1]. Unlike China, India is a democracy like the US, and while the US and India do sometimes have ideological disagreements (especially with BJP governments on the issue of religious freedom), those ideological disagreements are minor compared to those between the US and China. [1] https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2018-09/news-briefs/us-elevates-india’s-defense-trade-status https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2018-09/news-briefs/us-eleva...
      - dis-sys 7y ago
        > Japan was an economic competitor to the United States, but not an ideological or military competitor. That is my exact point - As one of the closest allies of the US, when Japan challenged the US with its rising semiconductor sector, US responded heavily under the name of national security. > By contrast, while India may in the future become a serious economic competitor to the United States, it shows no signs of being (or becoming) an ideological or military competitor. So you are trying to convince me that US is going to hand over its dominance of the world to another democracy.
Gibbon1 7y ago
That's totally true. The Chinese are also starting to aggressively go into distribution and finance. And unlike the Japanese and Koreans they aren't politically under the thumb of the US. They are big enough they can ignore the Washington Consensus. That's where the big freakout is coming from.
- stcredzero 7y ago
  That's where the big freakout is coming from. This also aligns with a long term goal of taking over Taiwan.
  - AlEinstein 7y ago
    That's a chilling thought.
    - stcredzero 7y ago
      They're the direct opposite of secretive about it.
- FartyMcFarter 7y ago
  The real freakout is that their government combines ruthless authoritarianism with suffocating surveillance technology, and they haven't even gotten started yet...
  - rbanffy 7y ago
    For me the scariest part is the demonstration that capitalism works better under an authoritarian regime.
    - mjevans 7y ago
      Capitalism works well when resources are scarce enough that everyone is short on something, but not so scarce that there isn't enough to even trade goods. (At that point disaster management needs to be very authoritarian.) Capitalism absolutely fails when there's "too much" surplus. Social focused alternatives also fail to survive in to human implementation because power corrupts and greed ruins everything. We need some benevolent dictators to do slightly wrong things for the right reasons, and a lot of right things for the right reasons, to break our cultures out of the insanity that infects them. Or maybe someone can come up with a greed proof form of governance and resource allocation that can tolerate the inherent failure modes associated with using humans as cogs in the system.
jml7c5 7y ago
One thing I always enjoyed from Back to the Future 3: DOC: (Inspects the failed circuit.) "Unbelievable that this little piece of junk could be such a big problem." (Turns it over.) "No wonder this circuit failed, it says made in Japan." MARTY: "What do you mean doc, all the best stuff is made in Japan." DOC: "Unbelievable."
- yellowapple 7y ago
  I thought that was the first Back to the Future?
  - tylerhou 7y ago
    https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/184207/was-the-joke-about-japanese-electronics-cut-from-back-to-the-future https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/184207/was-the-jok...
    - yellowapple 7y ago
      I feel like this is some kind of weird Berenstein Effect thing, because I distinctly remember that from the first movie (when they were discussing how to fix the DeLorean and get Marty back to 1985), and they definitely weren't wearing hardhats when the exchange took place. Man, getting spontaneously dropped off in a parallel universe is confusing as hell.
      - skyyler 7y ago
        >some kind of weird Berenstein Effect thing You mean like when you remember things incorrectly?
        yellowapple 7y ago
        Kinda, but a vivid mis-memory, and one that's shared by multiple people.
bitL 7y ago
Germany used to be the junk producer of 19th century.
tcbawo 7y ago
I recall the CEO of Motorola in the early 2000s deriding Samsung as Same-sung because they just copied other people's ideas. But Motorola steadily lost marketshare and now exists in name only (except for the government business).
peter_d_sherman 7y ago
Quote: "And every time it's the same pattern. First it's "hah look they make these cheap inferior copies" then quality improves and gets on par so it changes to "well they just copy our products and then sell them for cheaper because labor costs are much lower" and then when they finally start to innovate and excel everybody is super surprised cause it was just stupid Japanese/Korean/Chinese copying our technology without really understanding it so how could they possibly make something on their own?" This same pattern exists in Software too... Google with respect to the original Chrome version ("It's just a cheap knock-off of FireFox/Mozilla"), or Microsoft with the earliest versions of Word ("It's just a cheap knock-off of WordPerfect") or Excel ("It's just a cheap knock-off of Lotus 1-2-3"), or even the earliest versions of Windows ("It's just a cheap knock-off of Xerox Alto/PARC or Apple Lisa/early MacIntosh GUI"). History repeats itself in very predictable cycles... On the flip side, Intel and AMD are sorely in need of some competition... Remember that AMD's constant competition with Intel is one of the key reasons why CPU technology (well, x86-wise!) advanced as fast as it did, and more competitors should mean more technology advancement...
- tgb 7y ago
  I don't recall the early perception of Chrome being anything like that. Wasn't the innovation pretty obvious with separate processes for each tab? And I recall people being excited to see Google "finally" get in the browser game, which had been anticipated for a good while.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    Chrome was essentially launched on V8. At that time, full JavaScript webapps were still pretty slow. Neither MS, Mozilla, or Apple had a strategic interest in accelerating them by an order of magnitude. And V8 begat Node.js, for better or worse.
  - chimpburger 7y ago
    Chrome was initially perceived as innovative and more cutting edge than Firefox and IE, for its modern UX and superior architecture. It was objectively faster in benchmarks https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2008/09/hands-on-with-chrome-googles-browser-shines-mostly/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2008/09/hands...
ajross 7y ago
This is a "Chinese" chip only if you ignore 60 years of complicated geopolitics. It's a 16nm TSMC part.
- metildaa 7y ago
  A 7nm part won't be manufacturable outside TSMC or Samsung for years more, so this tech is really dependent on good relations with Taiwan or South Korea.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  I've often wondered the division of effort at a place like intel between the 'circuit design', and the 'physical stuff'. This Chinese design effectively only does the circuit/logic and above.

writepub 7y ago

Typically, India is 10-15 years behind China. India is currently undergoing the same software boom that China went through 15 years ago (with Baidu, Tencent, ...). Hardware manufacturing is now moving to India, and India already has a competent (though currently behind US, China) chip design. It is only a matter of time that India also starts making it's own [chips, hardware, software, services, devices]. And I bet a repeat of the exact same reactions from the west.

886 7y ago
It has started happening already. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/06/16/trade-war-india-hits-u-s-more-tariffs/1471140001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/06/16/trade-war-in...
skissane 7y ago
India has the advantage over China that it has a much friendlier relationship with the US and other Western countries than China has. There is a lot of national security concern about Chinese companies like Huawei having market share in sensitive sectors such as telecommunications infrastructure. An Indian equivalent to Huawei would be unlikely to face the same sort of concerns.
- dis-sys 7y ago
  > An Indian equivalent to Huawei would be unlikely to face the same sort of concerns. Learn history. When Japan's semiconductor industry did extremely well back in the 80s, it forced US to take actions under the name of national security [1]. Do you seriously believe that india's relationship with the west is better than the one enjoyed by Japan back in the 80s? [1] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3014531/lessons-old-trade-war-china-can-learn-japan-experience https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3014531/le...
  - skissane 7y ago
    Japan was an economic competitor to the United States, but not an ideological or military competitor. China is all three. Even at the height of US-Japan economic competition, they remained military allies, and Japan and the US both had democratic political systems. China and the US view each other as military competitors, and China's state ideology (that democracy is unnecessary for economic development, maybe even an obstacle to it) is diametrically opposed to that of the US. By contrast, while India may in the future become a serious economic competitor to the United States, it shows no signs of being (or becoming) an ideological or military competitor. While the US and India don't have a formal military alliance like the US and Japan have, the US is very much interested in selling military equipment to India [1]. Unlike China, India is a democracy like the US, and while the US and India do sometimes have ideological disagreements (especially with BJP governments on the issue of religious freedom), those ideological disagreements are minor compared to those between the US and China. [1] https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2018-09/news-briefs/us-elevates-india’s-defense-trade-status https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2018-09/news-briefs/us-eleva...
    - dis-sys 7y ago
      > Japan was an economic competitor to the United States, but not an ideological or military competitor. That is my exact point - As one of the closest allies of the US, when Japan challenged the US with its rising semiconductor sector, US responded heavily under the name of national security. > By contrast, while India may in the future become a serious economic competitor to the United States, it shows no signs of being (or becoming) an ideological or military competitor. So you are trying to convince me that US is going to hand over its dominance of the world to another democracy.

Gibbon1 7y ago

That's totally true. The Chinese are also starting to aggressively go into distribution and finance. And unlike the Japanese and Koreans they aren't politically under the thumb of the US. They are big enough they can ignore the Washington Consensus. That's where the big freakout is coming from.

stcredzero 7y ago
That's where the big freakout is coming from. This also aligns with a long term goal of taking over Taiwan.
- AlEinstein 7y ago
  That's a chilling thought.
  - stcredzero 7y ago
    They're the direct opposite of secretive about it.
FartyMcFarter 7y ago
The real freakout is that their government combines ruthless authoritarianism with suffocating surveillance technology, and they haven't even gotten started yet...
- rbanffy 7y ago
  For me the scariest part is the demonstration that capitalism works better under an authoritarian regime.
  - mjevans 7y ago
    Capitalism works well when resources are scarce enough that everyone is short on something, but not so scarce that there isn't enough to even trade goods. (At that point disaster management needs to be very authoritarian.) Capitalism absolutely fails when there's "too much" surplus. Social focused alternatives also fail to survive in to human implementation because power corrupts and greed ruins everything. We need some benevolent dictators to do slightly wrong things for the right reasons, and a lot of right things for the right reasons, to break our cultures out of the insanity that infects them. Or maybe someone can come up with a greed proof form of governance and resource allocation that can tolerate the inherent failure modes associated with using humans as cogs in the system.

jml7c5 7y ago

One thing I always enjoyed from Back to the Future 3: DOC: (Inspects the failed circuit.) "Unbelievable that this little piece of junk could be such a big problem." (Turns it over.) "No wonder this circuit failed, it says made in Japan." MARTY: "What do you mean doc, all the best stuff is made in Japan." DOC: "Unbelievable."

yellowapple 7y ago
I thought that was the first Back to the Future?
- tylerhou 7y ago
  https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/184207/was-the-joke-about-japanese-electronics-cut-from-back-to-the-future https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/184207/was-the-jok...
  - yellowapple 7y ago
    I feel like this is some kind of weird Berenstein Effect thing, because I distinctly remember that from the first movie (when they were discussing how to fix the DeLorean and get Marty back to 1985), and they definitely weren't wearing hardhats when the exchange took place. Man, getting spontaneously dropped off in a parallel universe is confusing as hell.
    - skyyler 7y ago
      >some kind of weird Berenstein Effect thing You mean like when you remember things incorrectly?
      - yellowapple 7y ago
        Kinda, but a vivid mis-memory, and one that's shared by multiple people.

bitL 7y ago

Germany used to be the junk producer of 19th century.

tcbawo 7y ago

I recall the CEO of Motorola in the early 2000s deriding Samsung as Same-sung because they just copied other people's ideas. But Motorola steadily lost marketshare and now exists in name only (except for the government business).

peter_d_sherman 7y ago

Quote: "And every time it's the same pattern. First it's "hah look they make these cheap inferior copies" then quality improves and gets on par so it changes to "well they just copy our products and then sell them for cheaper because labor costs are much lower" and then when they finally start to innovate and excel everybody is super surprised cause it was just stupid Japanese/Korean/Chinese copying our technology without really understanding it so how could they possibly make something on their own?" This same pattern exists in Software too... Google with respect to the original Chrome version ("It's just a cheap knock-off of FireFox/Mozilla"), or Microsoft with the earliest versions of Word ("It's just a cheap knock-off of WordPerfect") or Excel ("It's just a cheap knock-off of Lotus 1-2-3"), or even the earliest versions of Windows ("It's just a cheap knock-off of Xerox Alto/PARC or Apple Lisa/early MacIntosh GUI"). History repeats itself in very predictable cycles... On the flip side, Intel and AMD are sorely in need of some competition... Remember that AMD's constant competition with Intel is one of the key reasons why CPU technology (well, x86-wise!) advanced as fast as it did, and more competitors should mean more technology advancement...

tgb 7y ago
I don't recall the early perception of Chrome being anything like that. Wasn't the innovation pretty obvious with separate processes for each tab? And I recall people being excited to see Google "finally" get in the browser game, which had been anticipated for a good while.
- ethbro 7y ago
  Chrome was essentially launched on V8. At that time, full JavaScript webapps were still pretty slow. Neither MS, Mozilla, or Apple had a strategic interest in accelerating them by an order of magnitude. And V8 begat Node.js, for better or worse.
- chimpburger 7y ago
  Chrome was initially perceived as innovative and more cutting edge than Firefox and IE, for its modern UX and superior architecture. It was objectively faster in benchmarks https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2008/09/hands-on-with-chrome-googles-browser-shines-mostly/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2008/09/hands...

ajross 7y ago

This is a "Chinese" chip only if you ignore 60 years of complicated geopolitics. It's a 16nm TSMC part.

metildaa 7y ago
A 7nm part won't be manufacturable outside TSMC or Samsung for years more, so this tech is really dependent on good relations with Taiwan or South Korea.
londons_explore 7y ago
I've often wondered the division of effort at a place like intel between the 'circuit design', and the 'physical stuff'. This Chinese design effectively only does the circuit/logic and above.