3 ms·

Wonder if this is due to US gov pressure, with the aim to slow the growth of chip making in China?

acdha 3y ago
Being quick to jump to conspiracy theories means you’ll have trouble being taken seriously when something real happens. I’d go with the most parsimonious explanation: Google doesn’t have plans to ship anything soon and isn’t going to commit to supporting an entire platform they don’t need. Especially given their slash-and-burn management culture, I wouldn’t read anything more into it than nobody at Google thinking that they’re going to be promoted for working on that. I am curious whether we’ll see Qualcomm or someone else step up to do the work.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  Is the idea of government pressure automatically a conspiracy theory?
  - acdha 3y ago
    In the absence of any evidence or even a sensible motive, what is it? There’s no reason to think Google’s stated reason isn’t true, and as an attempt to obstruct China it would be rather pointless to go after something they have almost no deployed usage of which is starting behind things they do use.
  - stusmall 3y ago
    It is their guess at what is happening without proof. That is the definition of a theory. It is about two entities secretly working together to do something harmful. That's a conspiracy. So... I mean... yeah. The comment is a perfect example a conspiracy theory. Both in literal textbook definition and the broader cultural understanding of the term.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      Two entities, not publicly, very minor harm from reduced competition, you could say the same thing about a huge fraction of discussions between two companies. Government pressure isn't some big deal, it happens all the time. For the broader cultural understanding, it needs to be something where making it public wouldn't be extremely boring.
- freedomben 3y ago
  GP did not "jump to conspiracy theories." They asked a reasonable question. I would agree that it doesn't pass Occam's Razor, but there has been plenty of talk from US gov about concerns over China passing the US, and with ARM specifically. There was even an article about it on HN not too long ago. Furthermore the US gov has been putting a ton of pressure on big tech companies to get them to do things without formal laws or regulation. I hate when people jump to conspiracy theories with a passion, but I'm also beginning to hate when people overly dismiss reasonable theories as "conspiracy theories." It's important that we don't expand the definition of conspiracy theory to a meaningless height. This is what happened with the "Lab Leak" theory of Covid, which only served to "prove" the conspiracy theorists right and was and has been a major setback for people who want to call out conspiracy theories for what they are. If we expand the definition to include theories that are reasonable, then "conspiracy theory" ceases to be meaningful and we now lack a word that we really need, considering humans are prone to conspiracy thinking and it needs to be called out when it happens.
  - acdha 3y ago
    They did jump to a conspiracy theory: there’s no evidence that Google’s stated reason is hiding an ulterior motive, and as a way to hinder China it’d have very little impact since Chinese companies aren’t dependent on it. This is not the place to relitigate the lab leak mess but I will note that the conspiracy theorists were continually in a state of wrongness. They contributed nothing but noise because they were starting with the conclusion and confabulating as needed to support it. You can and should expect people to back claims up with logic and evidence.
    - justinclift 3y ago
      > as a way to hinder China it’d have very little impact since Chinese companies aren’t dependent on it Have you missed the whole "China developing RISC-V as an alternative path forward" thing then?
      - acdha 3y ago
        Not all, it just doesn’t work as a conspiracy theory. China is currently using x86, ARM, MIPS (Loong arch) at scale. If RISC-V makes sense for them, they can use it with Linux now. Now, think about what happens if the hypothetical men in black manage to keep Google from supporting it. China has an enormous tech sector, so if it’s economically viable to use RISC-V for phones or tablets they can pay a couple of developers to support RISC-V in an Android fork, which is going to be popular if RISC-V is working for anyone else in the world, and their domestic market alone is large enough to support it. If that doesn’t make sense, they’ll continue using the same ARM devices they’re currently using because the men in black can’t tell anyone to stop using that platform. Given how many US companies are looking into RISC-V, it’s also hard to see a ban being sustainable. If RISC-V starts to become competitive, American companies are not going to tolerate being shut out. If it doesn’t, being shut out won’t harm China.
- janice1999 3y ago
  OP did not openly endorse flat earth or suggest lizard people run the world. Speculation about tech that is at the center of geo-political tensions is bound to happen and it's only natural to question if government pressure is at play. The US has already enacted GPU bans and investigated and killed technology transfer deals. The US Commerce Department just this month is "working to review potential risks and assess whether there are appropriate actions under Commerce authorities that could effectively address any potential concerns" with regards to RISC_V. [1] That's the same department that pressured AMD to lower performance on China products before refusing to gran them an export license. [1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/24/us_commerce_china_risc_v_investigation/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/24/us_commerce_china_ris...
  - acdha 3y ago
    What makes something a conspiracy theory is that it ignores simple explanations in favor of something untestable and perfectly concealed. In this case we have a very simple explanation which is highly parsimonious - Google doesn’t see a business benefit yet from committing support – but we’re being asked to believe that instead the men in black visited Google to sabotage China by … not supporting an architecture which China doesn’t depend on and could easily support on their own if they did? Your reference to other actions undercuts your argument: when the US government has acted in the past, it has generally done so officially – not the CIA subverting Crypto-AG, but Commerce using market pressure openly. I wouldn’t say it’s impossible that they could act behind the scenes but if they were competent enough to do that so quietly I’d expect them to pick a higher impact target.
peppermint_gum 3y ago
I don't understand why anyone would see dropping RISC-V support as a move against China. Chinese companies have their fingers in a lot of pies. They're mainly invested in the ARM ecosystem, companies such as Allwinner, HiSilicon, Rockchip and UNISOC are very successful in this market. They also make x86 CPUs (Zhaoxin) and have developed their own domestic MIPS-derived architecture (LoongArch).
- justinclift 3y ago
  > I don't understand why anyone would see dropping RISC-V support as a move against China. Chinese companies have their fingers in a lot of pies. China are doing the shotgun approach, of shooting wide and hoping something hits the target. aka putting money into everything in the hope something will work to make them independent of western (chip making related) sanctions So, while China is doing a lot with ARM... they're also doing a lot with RISC-V. And RISC-V (at least until recent US government concerns) has had a very high uptake internationally + corresponding growth trajectory. ARM is still "western" tech, whereas RISC-V is more international now. For reference: https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-china-tech-war-risc-v-chip-technology-emerges-new-battleground-2023-10-06/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-china-tech-war-risc-v-... Note the specific mention of Google, Android and RISC-V in that? So there is clearly a change of "something" internally at Google to be backtracking just a few months later, though it could indeed be just a co-incidence. It'll be interesting if we see other (western) companies change their RISC-V plans too. ;)

Being quick to jump to conspiracy theories means you’ll have trouble being taken seriously when something real happens. I’d go with the most parsimonious explanation: Google doesn’t have plans to ship anything soon and isn’t going to commit to supporting an entire platform they don’t need. Especially given their slash-and-burn management culture, I wouldn’t read anything more into it than nobody at Google thinking that they’re going to be promoted for working on that. I am curious whether we’ll see Qualcomm or someone else step up to do the work.

Dylan16807 3y ago
Is the idea of government pressure automatically a conspiracy theory?
- acdha 3y ago
  In the absence of any evidence or even a sensible motive, what is it? There’s no reason to think Google’s stated reason isn’t true, and as an attempt to obstruct China it would be rather pointless to go after something they have almost no deployed usage of which is starting behind things they do use.
- stusmall 3y ago
  It is their guess at what is happening without proof. That is the definition of a theory. It is about two entities secretly working together to do something harmful. That's a conspiracy. So... I mean... yeah. The comment is a perfect example a conspiracy theory. Both in literal textbook definition and the broader cultural understanding of the term.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Two entities, not publicly, very minor harm from reduced competition, you could say the same thing about a huge fraction of discussions between two companies. Government pressure isn't some big deal, it happens all the time. For the broader cultural understanding, it needs to be something where making it public wouldn't be extremely boring.
freedomben 3y ago
GP did not "jump to conspiracy theories." They asked a reasonable question. I would agree that it doesn't pass Occam's Razor, but there has been plenty of talk from US gov about concerns over China passing the US, and with ARM specifically. There was even an article about it on HN not too long ago. Furthermore the US gov has been putting a ton of pressure on big tech companies to get them to do things without formal laws or regulation. I hate when people jump to conspiracy theories with a passion, but I'm also beginning to hate when people overly dismiss reasonable theories as "conspiracy theories." It's important that we don't expand the definition of conspiracy theory to a meaningless height. This is what happened with the "Lab Leak" theory of Covid, which only served to "prove" the conspiracy theorists right and was and has been a major setback for people who want to call out conspiracy theories for what they are. If we expand the definition to include theories that are reasonable, then "conspiracy theory" ceases to be meaningful and we now lack a word that we really need, considering humans are prone to conspiracy thinking and it needs to be called out when it happens.
- acdha 3y ago
  They did jump to a conspiracy theory: there’s no evidence that Google’s stated reason is hiding an ulterior motive, and as a way to hinder China it’d have very little impact since Chinese companies aren’t dependent on it. This is not the place to relitigate the lab leak mess but I will note that the conspiracy theorists were continually in a state of wrongness. They contributed nothing but noise because they were starting with the conclusion and confabulating as needed to support it. You can and should expect people to back claims up with logic and evidence.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    > as a way to hinder China it’d have very little impact since Chinese companies aren’t dependent on it Have you missed the whole "China developing RISC-V as an alternative path forward" thing then?
    - acdha 3y ago
      Not all, it just doesn’t work as a conspiracy theory. China is currently using x86, ARM, MIPS (Loong arch) at scale. If RISC-V makes sense for them, they can use it with Linux now. Now, think about what happens if the hypothetical men in black manage to keep Google from supporting it. China has an enormous tech sector, so if it’s economically viable to use RISC-V for phones or tablets they can pay a couple of developers to support RISC-V in an Android fork, which is going to be popular if RISC-V is working for anyone else in the world, and their domestic market alone is large enough to support it. If that doesn’t make sense, they’ll continue using the same ARM devices they’re currently using because the men in black can’t tell anyone to stop using that platform. Given how many US companies are looking into RISC-V, it’s also hard to see a ban being sustainable. If RISC-V starts to become competitive, American companies are not going to tolerate being shut out. If it doesn’t, being shut out won’t harm China.
janice1999 3y ago
OP did not openly endorse flat earth or suggest lizard people run the world. Speculation about tech that is at the center of geo-political tensions is bound to happen and it's only natural to question if government pressure is at play. The US has already enacted GPU bans and investigated and killed technology transfer deals. The US Commerce Department just this month is "working to review potential risks and assess whether there are appropriate actions under Commerce authorities that could effectively address any potential concerns" with regards to RISC_V. [1] That's the same department that pressured AMD to lower performance on China products before refusing to gran them an export license. [1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/24/us_commerce_china_risc_v_investigation/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/24/us_commerce_china_ris...
- acdha 3y ago
  What makes something a conspiracy theory is that it ignores simple explanations in favor of something untestable and perfectly concealed. In this case we have a very simple explanation which is highly parsimonious - Google doesn’t see a business benefit yet from committing support – but we’re being asked to believe that instead the men in black visited Google to sabotage China by … not supporting an architecture which China doesn’t depend on and could easily support on their own if they did? Your reference to other actions undercuts your argument: when the US government has acted in the past, it has generally done so officially – not the CIA subverting Crypto-AG, but Commerce using market pressure openly. I wouldn’t say it’s impossible that they could act behind the scenes but if they were competent enough to do that so quietly I’d expect them to pick a higher impact target.

peppermint_gum 3y ago

I don't understand why anyone would see dropping RISC-V support as a move against China. Chinese companies have their fingers in a lot of pies. They're mainly invested in the ARM ecosystem, companies such as Allwinner, HiSilicon, Rockchip and UNISOC are very successful in this market. They also make x86 CPUs (Zhaoxin) and have developed their own domestic MIPS-derived architecture (LoongArch).

justinclift 3y ago
> I don't understand why anyone would see dropping RISC-V support as a move against China. Chinese companies have their fingers in a lot of pies. China are doing the shotgun approach, of shooting wide and hoping something hits the target. aka putting money into everything in the hope something will work to make them independent of western (chip making related) sanctions So, while China is doing a lot with ARM... they're also doing a lot with RISC-V. And RISC-V (at least until recent US government concerns) has had a very high uptake internationally + corresponding growth trajectory. ARM is still "western" tech, whereas RISC-V is more international now. For reference: https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-china-tech-war-risc-v-chip-technology-emerges-new-battleground-2023-10-06/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-china-tech-war-risc-v-... Note the specific mention of Google, Android and RISC-V in that? So there is clearly a change of "something" internally at Google to be backtracking just a few months later, though it could indeed be just a co-incidence. It'll be interesting if we see other (western) companies change their RISC-V plans too. ;)