18 ms·

Well there is quietly. They are quiet about technical progress. They will only boast when they have something to show. SMEE and SMIC haven't posted substantial

Well there is quietly. They are quiet about technical progress. They will only boast when they have something to show. SMEE and SMIC haven't posted substantial updates for years because they don't want to draw the attention of more US sanctions, but under the hood they're working hard to expel foreign technology. You also haven't heard about any progress in Huawei until the phone came out.

gamepsys 3y ago
I always assumed the sudden leaps forward were a combination of having government funding (no need build hype to sell to VCs), corporate espionage, and an unconcerned attitude towards international intellectual property law. Not say no hard work was put into it, but from my perspective that have certain advantages to leverage while doing the work.
- KerrAvon 3y ago
  Yes, this was always where things were going to end up. It was completely predictable. All those foreign companies with local partnerships are going to be very sad. Thanks for the money and education, yankees, go home now. And they have critical mass now, so it accelerates every time the west closes off some of our technology to them. What did American executives think was going to happen when they got involved with a communist dictatorship on the dictatorship’s terms? (Rhetorical question; they were greedy and wanted short-term profit above all else.)
  - FooBarWidget 3y ago
    Predictable? In the old days people were yelling left and right that Chinese can't make advanced technology. Then they yelled that they can only copy. Even today many people (including in this very HN thread even...) are still saying that Chinese can only copy and can't possibly make real advanced stuff. China was in fact contend with the deal of being so far behind in semiconductors as long as they can import them. They could have invested even more in domestic semiconductor development, but chose not to because they assumed that they could just import what they wanted. 10 years ago, the Chinese govt set a target to produce 70% semiconductors domestically, but the Chinese industry didn't cooperate at all because of how easy and cost-efficient it was to import. With these sanctions, they now face an existential threat and thus they must progress. Yes maybe that comes with some spying and copying, but it seems ludicrous to me to focus so much on it. You deprive a person from his source of food and then when, out of desperation, he starts to steal, you complain about his bad morals? That outcome should be the more predictable one.
    - hakfoo 3y ago
      We don't even need to get into "desperation" arguments. I support their efforts to copy and extend 100%. Western states deserve to have their asses handed to them on this. This was a double-whammy of stupid assumptions: that the rest of the world-- with different backgrounds and needs-- would forever accept the "let's legislate that water runs uphill" IP narrative, and that other countries were willing to remain trade vassals forever. If it takes industrial-scale Chinese copying to force technology to march forward, I'm all for it. I also love the tendency to cast this as moral argument-- "they're StEaLiNg our tech." If anyone is immoral in this situation, it's the IP holders. They're bottling up the very progress of mankind to ensure they can make their quarterly sacrifices to the almighty Market God, and we've just normalized it here. I hope that their attitude towards intellectual property gets ever laxer and shows us a new way forward.
  - AniseAbyss 3y ago
    [dead]
- FooBarWidget 3y ago
  The sudden leaps forward are the result of how technical development fundamentally works. As you master the foundations, you suddenly make huge leaps forward because better foundations enable all sorts of new paths. For example, nuclear technology emerged all of a sudden, in multiple countries, because the foundations were there. People who don't understand this attribute way too much to stuff like "spying". China made huge leaps lately not because they suddenly poured a lot of money in this effort. They poured money in this effort for multiple decades, but progress was slow because the foundations were not there. However, investments in previous decades built such a foundation, which is why they are now making a lot of progress.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    > However, investments in previous decades built such a foundation To add on to this, China entered the Fab space in the late 90s/early 2000s when vendors in MY, SG, SK, JP, TH, and TW began outsourcing low margins sectors such as Memory, Photovoltaic, Packaging, and OSAT to Guangdong+Fujian in the early 2000s due to falling margins It takes a generation to build the supply chain needed for precision fabrication, and in certain sectors of the Chip industry (eg. Design) China is still somewhat behind (though it is changing rapidly due to investments in the 2010s). I'm no wumao, but a lot of the criticism against China's R&D capacity on HN is just plain stupid and show a ridiculous lack of understanding of EECS, business, or East Asia.
    - FooBarWidget 3y ago
      I think you shouldn't even need to add a disclaimer like "I'm no wumao" for stating things like that. You're not even being especially supportive of the Chinese government, just merely stating that they have a long history development and that there exist market- and power dynamics that favor China.
      - alephnerd 3y ago
        I don't want to be downvoted to oblivion for stating facts, so I have to preface this. HN has severely degraded, and people are getting downvoted to oblivion for bringing this up.
- lupire 3y ago
  The traditional term is "great leap forward" .
eunos 3y ago
SMIC is a public company, they are releasing quarterly and annually reports and outlooks just like other public companies but they are mostly in Mandarin. SMEE I heard will do IPO as well so we can expect similar releases. Example https://twitter.com/tphuang/status/1757448248443257038 https://twitter.com/tphuang/status/1757448248443257038
marcosdumay 3y ago
> They will only boast when they have something to show. Oh, how to fail to acknowledge a culture... China never boasted work in progress. And since their largest companies are tied to the government, I don't think they'll be tempted to do that any soon.

gamepsys 3y ago

I always assumed the sudden leaps forward were a combination of having government funding (no need build hype to sell to VCs), corporate espionage, and an unconcerned attitude towards international intellectual property law. Not say no hard work was put into it, but from my perspective that have certain advantages to leverage while doing the work.

KerrAvon 3y ago
Yes, this was always where things were going to end up. It was completely predictable. All those foreign companies with local partnerships are going to be very sad. Thanks for the money and education, yankees, go home now. And they have critical mass now, so it accelerates every time the west closes off some of our technology to them. What did American executives think was going to happen when they got involved with a communist dictatorship on the dictatorship’s terms? (Rhetorical question; they were greedy and wanted short-term profit above all else.)
- FooBarWidget 3y ago
  Predictable? In the old days people were yelling left and right that Chinese can't make advanced technology. Then they yelled that they can only copy. Even today many people (including in this very HN thread even...) are still saying that Chinese can only copy and can't possibly make real advanced stuff. China was in fact contend with the deal of being so far behind in semiconductors as long as they can import them. They could have invested even more in domestic semiconductor development, but chose not to because they assumed that they could just import what they wanted. 10 years ago, the Chinese govt set a target to produce 70% semiconductors domestically, but the Chinese industry didn't cooperate at all because of how easy and cost-efficient it was to import. With these sanctions, they now face an existential threat and thus they must progress. Yes maybe that comes with some spying and copying, but it seems ludicrous to me to focus so much on it. You deprive a person from his source of food and then when, out of desperation, he starts to steal, you complain about his bad morals? That outcome should be the more predictable one.
  - hakfoo 3y ago
    We don't even need to get into "desperation" arguments. I support their efforts to copy and extend 100%. Western states deserve to have their asses handed to them on this. This was a double-whammy of stupid assumptions: that the rest of the world-- with different backgrounds and needs-- would forever accept the "let's legislate that water runs uphill" IP narrative, and that other countries were willing to remain trade vassals forever. If it takes industrial-scale Chinese copying to force technology to march forward, I'm all for it. I also love the tendency to cast this as moral argument-- "they're StEaLiNg our tech." If anyone is immoral in this situation, it's the IP holders. They're bottling up the very progress of mankind to ensure they can make their quarterly sacrifices to the almighty Market God, and we've just normalized it here. I hope that their attitude towards intellectual property gets ever laxer and shows us a new way forward.
- AniseAbyss 3y ago
  [dead]
FooBarWidget 3y ago
The sudden leaps forward are the result of how technical development fundamentally works. As you master the foundations, you suddenly make huge leaps forward because better foundations enable all sorts of new paths. For example, nuclear technology emerged all of a sudden, in multiple countries, because the foundations were there. People who don't understand this attribute way too much to stuff like "spying". China made huge leaps lately not because they suddenly poured a lot of money in this effort. They poured money in this effort for multiple decades, but progress was slow because the foundations were not there. However, investments in previous decades built such a foundation, which is why they are now making a lot of progress.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  > However, investments in previous decades built such a foundation To add on to this, China entered the Fab space in the late 90s/early 2000s when vendors in MY, SG, SK, JP, TH, and TW began outsourcing low margins sectors such as Memory, Photovoltaic, Packaging, and OSAT to Guangdong+Fujian in the early 2000s due to falling margins It takes a generation to build the supply chain needed for precision fabrication, and in certain sectors of the Chip industry (eg. Design) China is still somewhat behind (though it is changing rapidly due to investments in the 2010s). I'm no wumao, but a lot of the criticism against China's R&D capacity on HN is just plain stupid and show a ridiculous lack of understanding of EECS, business, or East Asia.
  - FooBarWidget 3y ago
    I think you shouldn't even need to add a disclaimer like "I'm no wumao" for stating things like that. You're not even being especially supportive of the Chinese government, just merely stating that they have a long history development and that there exist market- and power dynamics that favor China.
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      I don't want to be downvoted to oblivion for stating facts, so I have to preface this. HN has severely degraded, and people are getting downvoted to oblivion for bringing this up.
lupire 3y ago
The traditional term is "great leap forward" .

eunos 3y ago

SMIC is a public company, they are releasing quarterly and annually reports and outlooks just like other public companies but they are mostly in Mandarin. SMEE I heard will do IPO as well so we can expect similar releases. Example https://twitter.com/tphuang/status/1757448248443257038 https://twitter.com/tphuang/status/1757448248443257038

marcosdumay 3y ago

> They will only boast when they have something to show. Oh, how to fail to acknowledge a culture... China never boasted work in progress. And since their largest companies are tied to the government, I don't think they'll be tempted to do that any soon.