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As a corollary, the current chip manufacturing war seems a bit overblown as well. Faster chips for what exactly? Do the current nanometer generations really mak

As a corollary, the current chip manufacturing war seems a bit overblown as well. Faster chips for what exactly? Do the current nanometer generations really make all that much a difference when it comes to drones or missiles?

Terr_ 2y ago
I suspect the military need isn't so much "our toys must always be 10% better than anyone else's", but rather a question of logistics, ensuring that Y years from now you will be able to safely source an adequate amount of not-too-far-behind components. The former is more-immediate and dramatic, so it gets trotted out when asking for funding.
talldayo 2y ago
> Do the current nanometer generations really make all that much a difference when it comes to drones or missiles? For current-generation weapons; no, not really. I suspect the US wants to stop the export of Nvidia to prevent Russia and China from getting an all-inclusive SDK for computer vision and ML. That makes sense; Nvidia is partnered with Northrop Grumman and the rest of "the complex". Giving competitors parity with your flagship weaponry is a bad foot to start off future battles on. My best guess (just flying by the seat of my pants) is that the US wants to push their advantageous relationship with key NATO partners like ASML to drive a hard tech advantage in the future. Chips like STM-32s and 8088 clones are already mass-produced without license in China and sold to manufacturers wholesale. America can beat them (on paper) by leveraging the IP they have domestically to create superior alternatives locally, albeit at-cost. In high-margin markets like weaponry I think this will work; but for consumer products it's going to be a doozy to stop relying on unlicensed Chinese components and cheap labor. History shows this strategy has worked before. Without importing Russian engines, the PRC aerospace industry was utterly crippled for a good few decades. If the US can strand China on low-yield EUV nodes, there's potential to leapfrog Chinese compute capability by an order of magnitude. Both China and the US have committed to more than they're capable of with their domestic fab strategy, time will tell if either of them get anything from it.

Terr_ 2y ago

I suspect the military need isn't so much "our toys must always be 10% better than anyone else's", but rather a question of logistics, ensuring that Y years from now you will be able to safely source an adequate amount of not-too-far-behind components. The former is more-immediate and dramatic, so it gets trotted out when asking for funding.

talldayo 2y ago

> Do the current nanometer generations really make all that much a difference when it comes to drones or missiles? For current-generation weapons; no, not really. I suspect the US wants to stop the export of Nvidia to prevent Russia and China from getting an all-inclusive SDK for computer vision and ML. That makes sense; Nvidia is partnered with Northrop Grumman and the rest of "the complex". Giving competitors parity with your flagship weaponry is a bad foot to start off future battles on. My best guess (just flying by the seat of my pants) is that the US wants to push their advantageous relationship with key NATO partners like ASML to drive a hard tech advantage in the future. Chips like STM-32s and 8088 clones are already mass-produced without license in China and sold to manufacturers wholesale. America can beat them (on paper) by leveraging the IP they have domestically to create superior alternatives locally, albeit at-cost. In high-margin markets like weaponry I think this will work; but for consumer products it's going to be a doozy to stop relying on unlicensed Chinese components and cheap labor. History shows this strategy has worked before. Without importing Russian engines, the PRC aerospace industry was utterly crippled for a good few decades. If the US can strand China on low-yield EUV nodes, there's potential to leapfrog Chinese compute capability by an order of magnitude. Both China and the US have committed to more than they're capable of with their domestic fab strategy, time will tell if either of them get anything from it.