4 ms·

Apart from the lip service that has obvious reasons to support that latest chip technology is crucial to the national security, I fail to understand why this is

Apart from the lip service that has obvious reasons to support that latest chip technology is crucial to the national security, I fail to understand why this is the case. What is the disadvantage that a country has if they only have access to computer technology from the 2010s? They will still make the same airplanes, drones, radars tanks and whatever. It seems to me that it is nice to have SOTA manufacturing capability for semi-conductors but not necessary.

bzzzt 2y ago
> What is the disadvantage that a country has if they only have access to computer technology from the 2010s? Try running a LLM on hardware from 2010.
- whatever1 2y ago
  Running LLMs I am absolutely positive I could do with my Dell r810 cluster back in 2010, if I had access to DeepSeek. Training a frontier model probably not. Again not clear what is the strategic benefit of having access to a frontier LLM model vs a more compact & less capable one.
- Almondsetat 2y ago
  Government office computers need LLMs?
  - pjc50 2y ago
    At this rate they're going to get them whether they need them or not. Big push in the west for "AI everywhere" e.g. Microsoft Copilot; UK has some ill-defined AI push https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crr05jykzkxo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crr05jykzkxo
nabla9 2y ago
In the early 2000s, bringing China into the global community was widely seen as a strategic decision. The Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations supported integrating China’s economy into the international rules-based system. China did not want to integrate. China has been seeking strategic independence in its economy by developing alternative layers of global economic ties, including the Belt and Road Initiative, PRC-centered supply chains, and emerging country groupings for longer than US. Too much technological ties with China are seen as a potential vulnerability. It's not just technology itself, but it's importance in trade and economy. If the US or its allies have value chains tightly integrated with China on strategic components, it creates dependence.
- buyucu 2y ago
  This is dishonest. China didn't spend the last 20 years invading multiple countries, committing acts of mass-murder and destabilizing the whole Middle-East. If anything, China's rise is a stabilizing factor for the whole world. It balances the aggression originating from the United States.
  - whatever1 2y ago
    Ok to be fair, for the past ~3000 years the Middle East has not shown any evidence that it can be stable.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      The Ottoman empire lasted for longer than the United States currently has.
gostsamo 2y ago
On the top of my head, you would like to cut costs for materials and nuclear research, big data analytics, all kinds of simulations, machine learning tasks that might not be llm-s, but still give you intelligence advantage, economic security in being able to provide multiple services on lower prices. If necessary, one can throw money, people, and other resources at a problem, but those could be spent elsewhere for higher return on investment. Especially, if you have multiple compute intensive tasks on the queue, you might have to prioritize and to deny yourself certain capabilities as a result. So, I'd say that it is not any one single task that needs cutting edge compute, it is the capability to perform multiple tasks at the same time on acceptable prices that is important.
qwertox 2y ago
Once China has a CPU that is really good enough for most critical tasks, it might as well start dealing with Taiwan in order to let other countries see how well they progress if they no longer have the manufacturing capabilities of TSMC and others at their disposal. If played well, it could even let them win the AI race even if they and everyone else have to struggle for a decade.
- pantalaimon 2y ago
  They already have Loongarch which is faster then current RISC-V designs.
  - janice1999 2y ago
    And Zhaoxin which is equivalent to 2015 Intel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin
re-thc 2y ago
> They will still make the same airplanes, drones, radars tanks and whatever. At the same cost and speed? Volume matters. > is crucial to the national security National security isn't just about military power. Without the latest chips, e.g. if there were sanctions, it could impact the economy. The nation can be become insecure e.g. by means of more and more people suffering from poverty.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
logicchains 2y ago
>They will still make the same airplanes, drones, radars tanks and whatever. Eventually there'll be fully autonomous drones and how competitive they'll be will be directly proportional to how fast they can react relative to enemy drones. All other things being equal, the country with faster microchips will have better combat drones.
- saidinesh5 2y ago
  > All other things being equal, the country with faster microchips will have better combat drones That's very unlikely imo. When it comes to drones.. no matter how fast your computation is, there are other bottlenecks like how fast the motors can spin up, how fast the sensor readings are, how much battery efficient they are etc... Right now the 8 bit ESCs are still as competitive as 32 bit ESC, a lot of the "follow me" tasks were using lot less computational power than what your typical smartphone these days offers...
  - logicchains 2y ago
    Current drones are very limited compared to what they could do with a lot more processing power and future hardware developments. E.g. imagine a drone that could shoot a moving target hundreds of metres away in the wind, while it itself was moving very fast.
    - nolist_policy 2y ago
      Battleships could do that in the 1960s without any silicon: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4 A drone moves faster, but I don't think that changes the calculations.
      - pjc50 2y ago
        The difficult bit for the drone is probably spotting the target. There doesn't seem to be a great interest in having (small) drones shoot things yet, all the current uses seem to be: - drone itself is the munition - drone is the spotter for other ground based artillery - drone dropping unguided munitions (e.g. grenades) "Large" drones (aircraft rather than quadcopter) seem to follow the same rules as manned aircraft and engage with guided or unguided munitions of their own. If the drone is cheap enough then "drone as munition" seems likely to win.

bzzzt 2y ago

> What is the disadvantage that a country has if they only have access to computer technology from the 2010s? Try running a LLM on hardware from 2010.

whatever1 2y ago
Running LLMs I am absolutely positive I could do with my Dell r810 cluster back in 2010, if I had access to DeepSeek. Training a frontier model probably not. Again not clear what is the strategic benefit of having access to a frontier LLM model vs a more compact & less capable one.
Almondsetat 2y ago
Government office computers need LLMs?
- pjc50 2y ago
  At this rate they're going to get them whether they need them or not. Big push in the west for "AI everywhere" e.g. Microsoft Copilot; UK has some ill-defined AI push https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crr05jykzkxo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crr05jykzkxo

nabla9 2y ago

In the early 2000s, bringing China into the global community was widely seen as a strategic decision. The Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations supported integrating China’s economy into the international rules-based system. China did not want to integrate. China has been seeking strategic independence in its economy by developing alternative layers of global economic ties, including the Belt and Road Initiative, PRC-centered supply chains, and emerging country groupings for longer than US. Too much technological ties with China are seen as a potential vulnerability. It's not just technology itself, but it's importance in trade and economy. If the US or its allies have value chains tightly integrated with China on strategic components, it creates dependence.

buyucu 2y ago
This is dishonest. China didn't spend the last 20 years invading multiple countries, committing acts of mass-murder and destabilizing the whole Middle-East. If anything, China's rise is a stabilizing factor for the whole world. It balances the aggression originating from the United States.
- whatever1 2y ago
  Ok to be fair, for the past ~3000 years the Middle East has not shown any evidence that it can be stable.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    The Ottoman empire lasted for longer than the United States currently has.

gostsamo 2y ago

On the top of my head, you would like to cut costs for materials and nuclear research, big data analytics, all kinds of simulations, machine learning tasks that might not be llm-s, but still give you intelligence advantage, economic security in being able to provide multiple services on lower prices. If necessary, one can throw money, people, and other resources at a problem, but those could be spent elsewhere for higher return on investment. Especially, if you have multiple compute intensive tasks on the queue, you might have to prioritize and to deny yourself certain capabilities as a result. So, I'd say that it is not any one single task that needs cutting edge compute, it is the capability to perform multiple tasks at the same time on acceptable prices that is important.

qwertox 2y ago

Once China has a CPU that is really good enough for most critical tasks, it might as well start dealing with Taiwan in order to let other countries see how well they progress if they no longer have the manufacturing capabilities of TSMC and others at their disposal. If played well, it could even let them win the AI race even if they and everyone else have to struggle for a decade.

pantalaimon 2y ago
They already have Loongarch which is faster then current RISC-V designs.
- janice1999 2y ago
  And Zhaoxin which is equivalent to 2015 Intel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin

re-thc 2y ago

> They will still make the same airplanes, drones, radars tanks and whatever. At the same cost and speed? Volume matters. > is crucial to the national security National security isn't just about military power. Without the latest chips, e.g. if there were sanctions, it could impact the economy. The nation can be become insecure e.g. by means of more and more people suffering from poverty.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

logicchains 2y ago

>They will still make the same airplanes, drones, radars tanks and whatever. Eventually there'll be fully autonomous drones and how competitive they'll be will be directly proportional to how fast they can react relative to enemy drones. All other things being equal, the country with faster microchips will have better combat drones.

saidinesh5 2y ago
> All other things being equal, the country with faster microchips will have better combat drones That's very unlikely imo. When it comes to drones.. no matter how fast your computation is, there are other bottlenecks like how fast the motors can spin up, how fast the sensor readings are, how much battery efficient they are etc... Right now the 8 bit ESCs are still as competitive as 32 bit ESC, a lot of the "follow me" tasks were using lot less computational power than what your typical smartphone these days offers...
- logicchains 2y ago
  Current drones are very limited compared to what they could do with a lot more processing power and future hardware developments. E.g. imagine a drone that could shoot a moving target hundreds of metres away in the wind, while it itself was moving very fast.
  - nolist_policy 2y ago
    Battleships could do that in the 1960s without any silicon: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4 A drone moves faster, but I don't think that changes the calculations.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      The difficult bit for the drone is probably spotting the target. There doesn't seem to be a great interest in having (small) drones shoot things yet, all the current uses seem to be: - drone itself is the munition - drone is the spotter for other ground based artillery - drone dropping unguided munitions (e.g. grenades) "Large" drones (aircraft rather than quadcopter) seem to follow the same rules as manned aircraft and engage with guided or unguided munitions of their own. If the drone is cheap enough then "drone as munition" seems likely to win.