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I guess I don't understand what the point is? A100s are extremely powerful and generally used for ML or mining, right? But mining is already illegal in China an

by 63 4y ago

I guess I don't understand what the point is? A100s are extremely powerful and generally used for ML or mining, right? But mining is already illegal in China and if the PRC wants to do military AI, I'm sure they're capable of building their own super computer without A100s. This isn't banning weaponized ai. It just seems like a minor annoyance to a couple of China's bigger companies who will quickly produce alternatives if they need to

jhanschoo 4y ago
AI, mining, and gaming aren't the only use of GPUs in the datacenter, (physical) model simulations are a large use case as well.
creatonez 4y ago
> I'm sure they're capable of building their own super computer without A100s They are most certainly not capable of doing this without silicon imports. Chinese manufacturing is hopelessly behind for the next decade at least.
- ceeplusplus 4y ago
  But nation states have never been restricted by export bans. For example the US during the Cold War bought titanium for the SR71 from the Soviet Union. And Russia is buying chips on the black market today for its invasion of Ukraine.
  - creatonez 4y ago
    The comment I replied to is saying that without access to this specific CPU, they can still compete. That's tangential to whether or not they could get their hands on it anyways.
- adrian_b 4y ago
  They still need the manufacturing capabilities of Taiwan, exactly like USA, which is also unable to manufacture GPUs, but they have already designed their own datacenter GPUs (see other comments above), so they no longer depend on NVIDIA or any other US vendor of GPUs. So this GPU export ban has come much too late, exactly when it no longer matters.
hulahoof 4y ago
Maybe the point is just to prevent shortages
pyinstallwoes 4y ago
Your priors are wrong on military, ai, and capability with manufacturing. There is a reason there is only a couple fabs in the world.
verall 4y ago
An A100 is MSRP ~$32000 and mines ether at less than 3X the rate of a $700 3080. Is there some fancy new coin out there that people mine with Tesla GPUs?

by 63 4y ago

jhanschoo 4y ago

AI, mining, and gaming aren't the only use of GPUs in the datacenter, (physical) model simulations are a large use case as well.

creatonez 4y ago

> I'm sure they're capable of building their own super computer without A100s They are most certainly not capable of doing this without silicon imports. Chinese manufacturing is hopelessly behind for the next decade at least.

ceeplusplus 4y ago
But nation states have never been restricted by export bans. For example the US during the Cold War bought titanium for the SR71 from the Soviet Union. And Russia is buying chips on the black market today for its invasion of Ukraine.
- creatonez 4y ago
  The comment I replied to is saying that without access to this specific CPU, they can still compete. That's tangential to whether or not they could get their hands on it anyways.
adrian_b 4y ago
They still need the manufacturing capabilities of Taiwan, exactly like USA, which is also unable to manufacture GPUs, but they have already designed their own datacenter GPUs (see other comments above), so they no longer depend on NVIDIA or any other US vendor of GPUs. So this GPU export ban has come much too late, exactly when it no longer matters.

hulahoof 4y ago

Maybe the point is just to prevent shortages

pyinstallwoes 4y ago

Your priors are wrong on military, ai, and capability with manufacturing. There is a reason there is only a couple fabs in the world.

verall 4y ago

An A100 is MSRP ~$32000 and mines ether at less than 3X the rate of a $700 3080. Is there some fancy new coin out there that people mine with Tesla GPUs?