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> I'm curious to understand, on your view, what would be more effective measures? If you absolutely wanted action, investing in US based RISC-V chips would mai

> I'm curious to understand, on your view, what would be more effective measures? If you absolutely wanted action, investing in US based RISC-V chips would maintain US leading edge capacity in the space. However, arguably no action is one of the most effective options. Quite a bit of RISC-V leadership is already based (or has one foot in) the US. Between Tenstorrent via Jim Keller, Ventana, and Rivos, the leading edge designs are US based. Cutting them off from the works convinces the rest of the world to invest even harder to these American companies. Protectionism here kneecaps these US companies and creates more competitors to them.

hashtag-til 3y ago
I think there is plenty of evidence that companies can be successful and at the same time compliant in not giving strategic technological advances to oppressive regimes that will weaponise such tech.
- monocasa 3y ago
  I think for leading edge technology, if these regimes can reproduce your work at all, whether they do so is more about the incentive structures in place. By restricting access, you provide the incentives for them to truly indigenously invest in the technology. By restricting access, you actually remove all control of the technology you had in the first place. After a bunch of back and forth, the US blocked access to Intel chips used in the Sunway Tianhe-2 supercomputer. The next version, the Sunway TaihuLight, was the fastest supercomputer in the world for two years, running on indigenously designed Chinese chips.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  Instruction set specs are not a strategic technological advance that can be weaponized. They just say what a chip should do. They don't help you make one that's more sophisticated than a basic unoptimized microcontroller, and "basic unoptimized microcontroller" is something you can get random college graduates to do.

hashtag-til 3y ago

I think there is plenty of evidence that companies can be successful and at the same time compliant in not giving strategic technological advances to oppressive regimes that will weaponise such tech.

monocasa 3y ago
I think for leading edge technology, if these regimes can reproduce your work at all, whether they do so is more about the incentive structures in place. By restricting access, you provide the incentives for them to truly indigenously invest in the technology. By restricting access, you actually remove all control of the technology you had in the first place. After a bunch of back and forth, the US blocked access to Intel chips used in the Sunway Tianhe-2 supercomputer. The next version, the Sunway TaihuLight, was the fastest supercomputer in the world for two years, running on indigenously designed Chinese chips.
Dylan16807 3y ago
Instruction set specs are not a strategic technological advance that can be weaponized. They just say what a chip should do. They don't help you make one that's more sophisticated than a basic unoptimized microcontroller, and "basic unoptimized microcontroller" is something you can get random college graduates to do.