4 ms·

So what are all the chips being illegally brought into China being used for? This is like banning the internet for Teenagers. It’s not gonna work.

logicchains 3y ago
Probably for training LLMs.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  Nuclear simulations - not LLMs. I made a pretty in-depth comment chain about this a couple weeks ago [0] and used to be a researcher in the space (both from a policymaking and technical standpoint) [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39515697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39515697
bilbo0s 3y ago
You've misunderstood their most likely impact target. Their goal is not to prevent regular people from using those chips. This rule does nothing to stop ordinary Chinese from using anything in fact. Their goal is to route billions, over time hundreds of billions actually, to their own chipmakers while those chipmakers develop their capabilities with MIPS and ARM architectures.
- blackhaz 3y ago
  Effectively forcing their gov't to decouple from the West. Good move. Even if their chips are 30% as effective, it will still work. Lots of pain the rear, but it will work.
  - jdsully 3y ago
    The USSR had the same strategy. It didn't work back then because the goal posts moved faster than they could march toward them.
    - addicted 3y ago
      Exactly. This also further deepens Chinese dependence on the government which means the government’s on the hook for more things. And the way the Chinese government is doing it they’re on the hook on both sides, both on the supply and demand side.
      - alephnerd 3y ago
        This is something the Xi Administration is fine with. His administration is largely traditionalists within the CCP, who are apathetic to market capitalism due to a couple very high profile corruption scandals in the 2000s and early 2010s.
    - anticodon 3y ago
      Market size of USSR was tiny compared to Chinese market size. Also, USSR was a socialist country with plan economy, China is capitalist economy. It's incorrect to compare China to USSR.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  The issue will be if it is channeled into effective investments or into graft. Pork is definitely an issue in the west. In China it’s next level. The other issue is that hundreds of billions is peanuts compared to free market and global governmental investment. It’s akin to the US government saying they’re going to develop their own operating systems and architectures via subcontractors. Most people would assume it’s doomed instantly. I sort of expect this is window dressing and isn’t practically meaningful. Telling an entire mega-enterprise like a major nations bureaucracy to somehow get all their software and processes onto a bespoke architecture and operating system is absurd. The software ecosystem doesn’t exist, and the existing software used today obviously doesn’t run on the new stack. If they actually enforced this processes would need to degenerate to paper trails for a decade or more as everything is either cross compiled and debugged or rewritten from scratch. That seems absurdly unlikely.
  - woooooo 3y ago
    Xiaomi and Huawei already distribute billions of devices not using Intel. You could take their phones, right now, plug in a keyboard and monitor and call it a workstation.
    - fnordpiglet 3y ago
      This is government computer use. I assume their ERP software stacks don’t run on a cell phone.
      - woooooo 3y ago
        Server portions probably run on Linux, though, which the phone also runs. And most business software written in the last 25 years assumes a web browser for a client. Yes, there's a lot of software outside that box but quite a lot in it, we're not talking about the soviets starting from first principles.
  - tredre3 3y ago
    > It’s akin to the US government saying they’re going to develop their own operating systems and architectures via subcontractors. Most people would assume it’s doomed instantly. > In China it’s next level. And yet, somehow, China gets things done and the USA doesn't. I honestly don't know how much corruption goes on and how much grifting there is in those processes, but their infrastructure, manufacturing, and overall tech are literally next level compared to America. I have no worries they'll achieve their goal of CPU independence.
lolinder 3y ago
You missed this part: > in government computers Seems like a pretty achievable target. The US does this same thing at even larger scales for materials used in federal construction projects—the contractors are responsible for ensuring that (almost?) all materials are sourced from the US and are required to provide documentation to prove it. If the US can do it for everything in a building down to the bolts and screws, I have little doubt that China can figure it out for CPUs.
- phs318u 3y ago
  > You missed this part: > > in government computers That's the rub. In a country where the ruling party has a significant stake in most core 'private' enterprises, the line between government and non-government is very blurry. Presumably someone in the Chinese government has an opinion on where this line is, or should be, drawn.
  - rat9988 3y ago
    The line is not blurry at all even in china.

logicchains 3y ago

Probably for training LLMs.

alephnerd 3y ago
Nuclear simulations - not LLMs. I made a pretty in-depth comment chain about this a couple weeks ago [0] and used to be a researcher in the space (both from a policymaking and technical standpoint) [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39515697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39515697

bilbo0s 3y ago

You've misunderstood their most likely impact target. Their goal is not to prevent regular people from using those chips. This rule does nothing to stop ordinary Chinese from using anything in fact. Their goal is to route billions, over time hundreds of billions actually, to their own chipmakers while those chipmakers develop their capabilities with MIPS and ARM architectures.

blackhaz 3y ago
Effectively forcing their gov't to decouple from the West. Good move. Even if their chips are 30% as effective, it will still work. Lots of pain the rear, but it will work.
- jdsully 3y ago
  The USSR had the same strategy. It didn't work back then because the goal posts moved faster than they could march toward them.
  - addicted 3y ago
    Exactly. This also further deepens Chinese dependence on the government which means the government’s on the hook for more things. And the way the Chinese government is doing it they’re on the hook on both sides, both on the supply and demand side.
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      This is something the Xi Administration is fine with. His administration is largely traditionalists within the CCP, who are apathetic to market capitalism due to a couple very high profile corruption scandals in the 2000s and early 2010s.
  - anticodon 3y ago
    Market size of USSR was tiny compared to Chinese market size. Also, USSR was a socialist country with plan economy, China is capitalist economy. It's incorrect to compare China to USSR.
fnordpiglet 3y ago
The issue will be if it is channeled into effective investments or into graft. Pork is definitely an issue in the west. In China it’s next level. The other issue is that hundreds of billions is peanuts compared to free market and global governmental investment. It’s akin to the US government saying they’re going to develop their own operating systems and architectures via subcontractors. Most people would assume it’s doomed instantly. I sort of expect this is window dressing and isn’t practically meaningful. Telling an entire mega-enterprise like a major nations bureaucracy to somehow get all their software and processes onto a bespoke architecture and operating system is absurd. The software ecosystem doesn’t exist, and the existing software used today obviously doesn’t run on the new stack. If they actually enforced this processes would need to degenerate to paper trails for a decade or more as everything is either cross compiled and debugged or rewritten from scratch. That seems absurdly unlikely.
- woooooo 3y ago
  Xiaomi and Huawei already distribute billions of devices not using Intel. You could take their phones, right now, plug in a keyboard and monitor and call it a workstation.
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    This is government computer use. I assume their ERP software stacks don’t run on a cell phone.
    - woooooo 3y ago
      Server portions probably run on Linux, though, which the phone also runs. And most business software written in the last 25 years assumes a web browser for a client. Yes, there's a lot of software outside that box but quite a lot in it, we're not talking about the soviets starting from first principles.
- tredre3 3y ago
  > It’s akin to the US government saying they’re going to develop their own operating systems and architectures via subcontractors. Most people would assume it’s doomed instantly. > In China it’s next level. And yet, somehow, China gets things done and the USA doesn't. I honestly don't know how much corruption goes on and how much grifting there is in those processes, but their infrastructure, manufacturing, and overall tech are literally next level compared to America. I have no worries they'll achieve their goal of CPU independence.

lolinder 3y ago

You missed this part: > in government computers Seems like a pretty achievable target. The US does this same thing at even larger scales for materials used in federal construction projects—the contractors are responsible for ensuring that (almost?) all materials are sourced from the US and are required to provide documentation to prove it. If the US can do it for everything in a building down to the bolts and screws, I have little doubt that China can figure it out for CPUs.

phs318u 3y ago
> You missed this part: > > in government computers That's the rub. In a country where the ruling party has a significant stake in most core 'private' enterprises, the line between government and non-government is very blurry. Presumably someone in the Chinese government has an opinion on where this line is, or should be, drawn.
- rat9988 3y ago
  The line is not blurry at all even in china.