10 ms·

It's interesting to see that people on both sides are angry -- for different reasons. People on western Internet are angry at Intel for having issued an apology

It's interesting to see that people on both sides are angry -- for different reasons. People on western Internet are angry at Intel for having issued an apology. People on Chinese Internet are angry because they view it as a non-apology, i.e. Intel still goes ahead with the ban. I see people -- including Chinese diaspora -- calling for banning Intel.

hrrsn 5y ago
> I see people -- including Chinese diaspora -- calling for banning Intel. Is this feasible? There's not all that many other options for x86
- T-A 5y ago
  https://www.tomshardware.com/news/dual-chinese-zen-cpu-beat-ryzen-5-5600x-multi-threaded-workloads https://www.tomshardware.com/news/dual-chinese-zen-cpu-beat-...
- FooBarWidget 5y ago
  I doubt it. China is not there yet w.r.t. semiconductor independence. There are people who say, buy AMD, but AMD is also subject to US laws... So what will happen instead? From what I've seen so far, China is careful with counterattacking US because they know the US is stronger. I think the govt will just issue an angry statement but do nothing concrete internationally, while continuing their domestic efforts of semiconductor development as they already have, and also continuing with restructuring Xinjiang's economy (i.e. replacing foreign customers with domestic customers, as happened with cotton)
  - limoce 5y ago
    They will choose AMD because AMD doesn't make this statement clear but Intel explicitly mentions "Xinjiang" in its annual supplier letter. I guess AMD did take this factor into consideration.
  - e9 5y ago
    Alibaba recently announced new CPU they developed based on ARM: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/alibaba-unveils-128-core-server-cpu https://www.tomshardware.com/news/alibaba-unveils-128-core-s...
    - FooBarWidget 5y ago
      There are companies that are competitive in CPU design. But CPU manufacturing is a bottleneck. At the low end, they lack scale (until the new factories are built). At the high end (beyond about 14nm), they either lack an independent supply chain (and are thus susceptible to sanctions) or ability (beyond 10 nm requires EUV). Furthermore, what we're talking about here is replacing x86. There is indeed a joint venture with AMD, but at the end of the day x86 is still US intellectual property and thus susceptible to sanctions. It would be a different matter if they decide to replace x86 wholesale with something else, e.g. ARM or RISC-V. That is certainly more feasible today than a decade ago, with Android being a major platform and no longer being constrained to just Windows. But it's probably still a large amount of effort.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  I think AMD has less (possibly much less) in China than Intel. I spent about €200,000 on AMD servers last year. They are performing better than Intel ones would have done at the same price, so it was a very easy decision.
  - dnautics 5y ago
    isn't this exactly the opposite? IIRC there was a situation where a large-ish? AMD subdivision in china was nationalized and made off with a considerable amount of AMD IP
    - formerly_proven 5y ago
      You're probably thinking about ARM, whose Chinese branch unilaterally declared independency from the crown some time ago.
      - dnautics 5y ago
        Ah yes, my bad!! Sorry
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      you're thinking of ARM
yorwba 5y ago
Personally, I'm most angry that Intel refuses to properly audit their suppliers. They're not actually banned from importing goods from Xinjiang if they can prove that they weren't made with forced labor. If they could prove that, the US government should be happy (because their stated goal of combating forced labor is respected) and Chinese people should be happy, too (better working conditions). Merely restricting suppliers based on geography is a non-solution, since it's not like forced labor magically stops if you cross a provincial border.
- FooBarWidget 5y ago
  I don't think it's that simple. For example BCI performed multiple audits since 2012 and hasn't found a single case of forced labor.[1][2] Despite that, they've pulled back from Xinjiang. Companies don't want to deal with Xinjiang just so they can avoid controversies, regardless of actual facts. Also, the Xinjiang Forced Labor Prevention Act is based on the maxim of guilty-until-proven-innocent. There is no way to conclusively prove a negative. Even if you perform 100 unannounced audits you can still say "oh there's 0.001% chance that they fooled you 100 times" 1 https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1375456747477815296 https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1375456747477815296 2 https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-26/BCI-s-China-office-No-forced-labor-found-in-Xinjiang-YWR18lkjy8/index.html https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-26/BCI-s-China-office-No-...
  - jedimind 5y ago
    - FooBarWidget 5y ago
      Right. Here, check this: https://apparelinsider.com/bci-shanghai-claims-audit-findings-were-ignored/ https://apparelinsider.com/bci-shanghai-claims-audit-finding... Just because people and outlets have a different opinion than you doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong, or "propagandists". Some people just have a different opinion, out of their own free will and independent thought, all right?
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Personally, I'm angry at Intel for not having actual convictions. It looks like they're doing the ban, not because they actually believe that there's slave labor in Xinjiang, but because their stockholders will be mad if they don't. And they issued the apology, not because they realized that there is no slave labor in Xinjiang, but because they don't want China angry at them. They're trying to just get on with being a business. (And to some degree that's fair. Intel is a business, not a moral crusader. Still, I'd like them to either take a stand, or not take a stand. Don't try to "take a stand" just to make people happy.) ("Angry" is too strong a word. "Disappointed" might be better. But I said "angry" to match the wording of the parent.)
- alex77456 5y ago
  There is no reason to expect human-like behaviour and traits from organisations.
  - notpachet 5y ago
    And yet we deem it appropriate to grant them personhood in the eyes of the law.
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      If corporations are people as the Supreme Court would have us believe, they are most certainly psychopaths. Natural people need to be clear-eyed about this. Don’t look to corporations as moral leaders. They will fail almost any moral test you can throw at them.
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  As long as corporations are legal persons, I'm going to hold them to a moral standard, and I think the American public as a whole has a duty to do the same. If they can contribute to politicians, then we all have a personal stake in their ethics.
clove 5y ago
Hey, my favorite CCP shill, FooBarWidget: What is your official stance on Xi's new chair?
- dang 5y ago
  Posting like this is a bannable offense on HN. You can't attack another user like this, no matter how strongly you disagree with them. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29739415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29739415 for a longer explanation.
- FooBarWidget 5y ago
  I don't care about his chair.

hrrsn 5y ago

> I see people -- including Chinese diaspora -- calling for banning Intel. Is this feasible? There's not all that many other options for x86

T-A 5y ago
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/dual-chinese-zen-cpu-beat-ryzen-5-5600x-multi-threaded-workloads https://www.tomshardware.com/news/dual-chinese-zen-cpu-beat-...
FooBarWidget 5y ago
I doubt it. China is not there yet w.r.t. semiconductor independence. There are people who say, buy AMD, but AMD is also subject to US laws... So what will happen instead? From what I've seen so far, China is careful with counterattacking US because they know the US is stronger. I think the govt will just issue an angry statement but do nothing concrete internationally, while continuing their domestic efforts of semiconductor development as they already have, and also continuing with restructuring Xinjiang's economy (i.e. replacing foreign customers with domestic customers, as happened with cotton)
- limoce 5y ago
  They will choose AMD because AMD doesn't make this statement clear but Intel explicitly mentions "Xinjiang" in its annual supplier letter. I guess AMD did take this factor into consideration.
- e9 5y ago
  Alibaba recently announced new CPU they developed based on ARM: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/alibaba-unveils-128-core-server-cpu https://www.tomshardware.com/news/alibaba-unveils-128-core-s...
  - FooBarWidget 5y ago
    There are companies that are competitive in CPU design. But CPU manufacturing is a bottleneck. At the low end, they lack scale (until the new factories are built). At the high end (beyond about 14nm), they either lack an independent supply chain (and are thus susceptible to sanctions) or ability (beyond 10 nm requires EUV). Furthermore, what we're talking about here is replacing x86. There is indeed a joint venture with AMD, but at the end of the day x86 is still US intellectual property and thus susceptible to sanctions. It would be a different matter if they decide to replace x86 wholesale with something else, e.g. ARM or RISC-V. That is certainly more feasible today than a decade ago, with Android being a major platform and no longer being constrained to just Windows. But it's probably still a large amount of effort.
Symbiote 5y ago
I think AMD has less (possibly much less) in China than Intel. I spent about €200,000 on AMD servers last year. They are performing better than Intel ones would have done at the same price, so it was a very easy decision.
- dnautics 5y ago
  isn't this exactly the opposite? IIRC there was a situation where a large-ish? AMD subdivision in china was nationalized and made off with a considerable amount of AMD IP
  - formerly_proven 5y ago
    You're probably thinking about ARM, whose Chinese branch unilaterally declared independency from the crown some time ago.
    - dnautics 5y ago
      Ah yes, my bad!! Sorry
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    you're thinking of ARM

yorwba 5y ago

Personally, I'm most angry that Intel refuses to properly audit their suppliers. They're not actually banned from importing goods from Xinjiang if they can prove that they weren't made with forced labor. If they could prove that, the US government should be happy (because their stated goal of combating forced labor is respected) and Chinese people should be happy, too (better working conditions). Merely restricting suppliers based on geography is a non-solution, since it's not like forced labor magically stops if you cross a provincial border.

FooBarWidget 5y ago
I don't think it's that simple. For example BCI performed multiple audits since 2012 and hasn't found a single case of forced labor.[1][2] Despite that, they've pulled back from Xinjiang. Companies don't want to deal with Xinjiang just so they can avoid controversies, regardless of actual facts. Also, the Xinjiang Forced Labor Prevention Act is based on the maxim of guilty-until-proven-innocent. There is no way to conclusively prove a negative. Even if you perform 100 unannounced audits you can still say "oh there's 0.001% chance that they fooled you 100 times" 1 https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1375456747477815296 https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1375456747477815296 2 https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-26/BCI-s-China-office-No-forced-labor-found-in-Xinjiang-YWR18lkjy8/index.html https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-26/BCI-s-China-office-No-...
- jedimind 5y ago
  - FooBarWidget 5y ago
    Right. Here, check this: https://apparelinsider.com/bci-shanghai-claims-audit-findings-were-ignored/ https://apparelinsider.com/bci-shanghai-claims-audit-finding... Just because people and outlets have a different opinion than you doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong, or "propagandists". Some people just have a different opinion, out of their own free will and independent thought, all right?

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

Personally, I'm angry at Intel for not having actual convictions. It looks like they're doing the ban, not because they actually believe that there's slave labor in Xinjiang, but because their stockholders will be mad if they don't. And they issued the apology, not because they realized that there is no slave labor in Xinjiang, but because they don't want China angry at them. They're trying to just get on with being a business. (And to some degree that's fair. Intel is a business, not a moral crusader. Still, I'd like them to either take a stand, or not take a stand. Don't try to "take a stand" just to make people happy.) ("Angry" is too strong a word. "Disappointed" might be better. But I said "angry" to match the wording of the parent.)

alex77456 5y ago
There is no reason to expect human-like behaviour and traits from organisations.
- notpachet 5y ago
  And yet we deem it appropriate to grant them personhood in the eyes of the law.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    If corporations are people as the Supreme Court would have us believe, they are most certainly psychopaths. Natural people need to be clear-eyed about this. Don’t look to corporations as moral leaders. They will fail almost any moral test you can throw at them.
BobbyJo 5y ago
As long as corporations are legal persons, I'm going to hold them to a moral standard, and I think the American public as a whole has a duty to do the same. If they can contribute to politicians, then we all have a personal stake in their ethics.

clove 5y ago

Hey, my favorite CCP shill, FooBarWidget: What is your official stance on Xi's new chair?

dang 5y ago
Posting like this is a bannable offense on HN. You can't attack another user like this, no matter how strongly you disagree with them. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29739415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29739415 for a longer explanation.
FooBarWidget 5y ago
I don't care about his chair.