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A very good overview of the generations of Chinese chips, but I feel like matching performance isn’t really the goal for domestic Chinese chips? Sure, they’d lo

A very good overview of the generations of Chinese chips, but I feel like matching performance isn’t really the goal for domestic Chinese chips? Sure, they’d love them to be as fast or faster than western cpus, but ultimately they ensure China is not starved of microprocessors in a war.

alephnerd 2y ago
> ensure China is not starved of microprocessors in a war Partially true, but the other issue is high performance CPUs and GPUs are needed for simulations applications such as nuclear weapons testing, jet engine design, airframe design, etc. Much of this requires a highly performance HPC infra, and while China has built a strong distributed systems base (kinda hard not to when UIUC and UCB CS has such a strong alumni network in China), the compute resources needed are still dependent on foreign inputs from Intel and Nvidia, whose top-of-the-line offerings all face import restrictions from the US. A lot of the impetus around domestic high performance CPU research came when the Intel Xeon ban entered the fold, which was specifically because of the worries from above.
- credit_guy 2y ago
  > such as nuclear weapons testing, jet engine design, airframe design People were doing that 30 years ago with the chips available at the time. F-22 first flew in 1997. If the Chinese can match the F-22, I think they'll take that as a win.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > People were doing that 30 years ago with the chips available at the time I agree to a certain extent, but this isn't something done in isolation, and I think you're falling into the classic trap of assuming a hard problem is actually easy. Just having chips alone isn't enough for simulations - you need an entire ecosystem of SDKs, BLAS implementations, etc that are very difficult and very hardware dependent. Most of the existing stack and ecosystem in the space was developed with Intel, AMD, and increasingly Nvidia hardware in mind and with their input, and to even reach that point you need to build multiple domestic champions if you're the kind of country that's increasingly facing tech sanctions which imo are increasingly comparable to those imposed on Russia post-Crimea. And this is why there has been a massive push on this kind of domestic ecosystem in China after the Xeon import sanctions began. Also, as I mentioned previously, the biggest reason is nuclear simulations, as China has de facto chosen to transition from defensive nuclear capabilities to offensive as well [0] (sources in this comment thread). [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39515697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39515697
    - nothercastle 2y ago
      The Chinese have more honor students than the us has students. I’m sure they can figure it out… it’s not easy sure but given the enormous amount of resources at their disposal it’s certainly possible
    - credit_guy 2y ago
      > the biggest reason is nuclear simulations There is this mythical thing about the nuclear simulations. The national labs run the baddest supercomputers out there, and they are involved in the nuclear stockpile stewardship, so huge simulations must somehow be necessary. Either to maintain the nukes themselves, or at least to maintain them while respecting the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. Treaty that was signed but never ratified by the US, Russia or China, by the way. The reality is something like that. A fission bomb, when detonated, goes through about 50 or 60 generations of neutrons. Because of the exponential nature of the chain reaction, most of the energy comes from the last 10 or 20 generations. You can adjust the power of the implosion so that you trigger only 10 or 20 or 30 generations of neutrons. At some point you get enough heat from the reaction that the core melts; such a test is called "hydronuclear" and CIA has strong evidence that Russia performs hydronuclear tests. You can also adjust the implosion that you get a chain reaction that is subcritical (each new generation has fewer neutrons that the one before). All nuclear powers perform subcritical tests. The difference between subcritical and hydronuclear tests is only a theoretical one. There are no means to monitor a state for hydronuclear tests (other than human intelligence of course). China does not need supercomputers to maintain a cutting edge nuclear force. After all, the US and the USSR had such nuclear forces 50 years ago, when the entire computing power of the world was less than what my iPhone can provide to me right now.
  - blackbear_ 2y ago
    Well yeah, people were designing airplanes before computers were a thing. Or, to be less snarky, the more computational power you have, the more design possibilities you can explore.
edm0nd 2y ago
Part of the Chinese MO is also to just hack into all the top tech companies in the West and steal their R&D and use it for themselves.
- hypercube33 2y ago
  I mean in a way it worked pretty well for Russia. Otherwise we wouldn't have surreal pictures of Space Shuttles in dumps or clones of the Concorde even though inferior still able to fly. It works and it's quick to do and catch up as a national pride item.

alephnerd 2y ago

> ensure China is not starved of microprocessors in a war Partially true, but the other issue is high performance CPUs and GPUs are needed for simulations applications such as nuclear weapons testing, jet engine design, airframe design, etc. Much of this requires a highly performance HPC infra, and while China has built a strong distributed systems base (kinda hard not to when UIUC and UCB CS has such a strong alumni network in China), the compute resources needed are still dependent on foreign inputs from Intel and Nvidia, whose top-of-the-line offerings all face import restrictions from the US. A lot of the impetus around domestic high performance CPU research came when the Intel Xeon ban entered the fold, which was specifically because of the worries from above.

credit_guy 2y ago
> such as nuclear weapons testing, jet engine design, airframe design People were doing that 30 years ago with the chips available at the time. F-22 first flew in 1997. If the Chinese can match the F-22, I think they'll take that as a win.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > People were doing that 30 years ago with the chips available at the time I agree to a certain extent, but this isn't something done in isolation, and I think you're falling into the classic trap of assuming a hard problem is actually easy. Just having chips alone isn't enough for simulations - you need an entire ecosystem of SDKs, BLAS implementations, etc that are very difficult and very hardware dependent. Most of the existing stack and ecosystem in the space was developed with Intel, AMD, and increasingly Nvidia hardware in mind and with their input, and to even reach that point you need to build multiple domestic champions if you're the kind of country that's increasingly facing tech sanctions which imo are increasingly comparable to those imposed on Russia post-Crimea. And this is why there has been a massive push on this kind of domestic ecosystem in China after the Xeon import sanctions began. Also, as I mentioned previously, the biggest reason is nuclear simulations, as China has de facto chosen to transition from defensive nuclear capabilities to offensive as well [0] (sources in this comment thread). [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39515697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39515697
  - nothercastle 2y ago
    The Chinese have more honor students than the us has students. I’m sure they can figure it out… it’s not easy sure but given the enormous amount of resources at their disposal it’s certainly possible
  - credit_guy 2y ago
    > the biggest reason is nuclear simulations There is this mythical thing about the nuclear simulations. The national labs run the baddest supercomputers out there, and they are involved in the nuclear stockpile stewardship, so huge simulations must somehow be necessary. Either to maintain the nukes themselves, or at least to maintain them while respecting the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. Treaty that was signed but never ratified by the US, Russia or China, by the way. The reality is something like that. A fission bomb, when detonated, goes through about 50 or 60 generations of neutrons. Because of the exponential nature of the chain reaction, most of the energy comes from the last 10 or 20 generations. You can adjust the power of the implosion so that you trigger only 10 or 20 or 30 generations of neutrons. At some point you get enough heat from the reaction that the core melts; such a test is called "hydronuclear" and CIA has strong evidence that Russia performs hydronuclear tests. You can also adjust the implosion that you get a chain reaction that is subcritical (each new generation has fewer neutrons that the one before). All nuclear powers perform subcritical tests. The difference between subcritical and hydronuclear tests is only a theoretical one. There are no means to monitor a state for hydronuclear tests (other than human intelligence of course). China does not need supercomputers to maintain a cutting edge nuclear force. After all, the US and the USSR had such nuclear forces 50 years ago, when the entire computing power of the world was less than what my iPhone can provide to me right now.
- blackbear_ 2y ago
  Well yeah, people were designing airplanes before computers were a thing. Or, to be less snarky, the more computational power you have, the more design possibilities you can explore.

edm0nd 2y ago

Part of the Chinese MO is also to just hack into all the top tech companies in the West and steal their R&D and use it for themselves.

hypercube33 2y ago
I mean in a way it worked pretty well for Russia. Otherwise we wouldn't have surreal pictures of Space Shuttles in dumps or clones of the Concorde even though inferior still able to fly. It works and it's quick to do and catch up as a national pride item.