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Who are those "other big players" when it comes to building a complete AI stack? Who can compete with Tesla and Waymo without having to buy hardware and softwa

Who are those "other big players" when it comes to building a complete AI stack? Who can compete with Tesla and Waymo without having to buy hardware and software from the US? Who can compete with OpenAI, Google, Grok, Perplexity without US hardware and software?

willvarfar 2y ago
The Chinese? It sounds flippant but the US hasn't got some unassailable moat around chip production or their application.
- ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
  It's not a small feat. China would have to: 1: Take over Taiwan to get TSML under their control 2: Find a way to make a deal with ASML for the needed lithography machines 3: Somehow aquire the knowhow that Nvidia has Taiwan would require a conflict with the US. ASML is a dutch company but seems to be somehow under US control. I have not yet figured out the exact setup there. And Nvidia is a US company.
  - willvarfar 2y ago
    China has steadily been developing its own processes and the laser tech needed for smaller sizes. It is very clear that both US and China are racing to onshore and establish sovereign control of chip production. Sucks to be Taiwanese right now. The "silicon shield" is evaporating.
    - ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
      Citation needed. I have yet to see anything that hints at China being able to catch up with ASML+TSMC+Nvidia.
      - themagician 2y ago
        They are trying, and will eventually catch up, the same way they have in software and in hardware in many other spaces. Maybe it will take another 10 years. Maybe another 10 months. This idea that EUVL is—and always will be—outside of the reach of China is, frankly, silly. It's a silly strategy to maintain dominance. They will straight up steal the technology if needed. We should stop pretending like we can roadblock the technological development of the largest country. It's just going to make the fall that much harder. Once they do attain the ability to manufactuer EUVL domestically, capital is going to flood out of US tech stocks like no tomorrow. You haven't seen anything that hints at it, because most news about what happens in China doesn't leave China. The propoganda machine is hard at work reminding you that China is terrible and eveyrone in China is poor. You'll learn about China catching up only after it's already happened.
        ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
        news about what happens in China doesn't leave China Then how do you know?
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        That’s just a dumb red herring strawman take on news about China. You can be perfectly informed about what is happening in China, you can also be misled by their propaganda as well. China will eventually catch up in the two areas it is lacking (performant and economical semiconductors and jet turbines) since they are throwing billions at it, but they won’t pass the west overnight (it will still take a few years, maybe a decade).
  - tibbydudeza 2y ago
    UEV patents are held by the DOD so the US get's to decide who get's the machines.
rtkwe 2y ago
Deepseek seems to prove there's no super secret sauce that makes these models irreproducible outside the US and that the companies here are suffering a bit from the glut of cash/credits leading them to burn tons of extra processing power that could have been optimized away.
- ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
  DeepSeek has been trained on US hardware.
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    US hardware in what sense? My understanding was it was trained on spare compute owned by the parent company but I didn't bother looking that deep.
    - ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
      Trained on Nvidia GPUs.
      - rtkwe 2y ago
        The US AI industry does have easier access to them but again Deepseek proves countries outside the US can get enough access to them to produce similarly powerful models. Unless the US really clamps down on exports of cards, which will be hard given they're made overseas and only designed in the US, it's not like they're a unique resource only US companies can access.
- 827a 2y ago
  A nice model, does not a billion dollar company make. The hard part of AI is not the model; Apple needs people to do the 80% rest-of-the-work; how do you make AI useful to the average person? How can we get inference on edge devices as cheap and efficient as possible? Models are boring. Everyone fully expects that we'll see an N% increase in intelligence every six months now. Yawn. The exciting thing now is: What are we using AI for?
ghaff 2y ago
With the combination of very real geopolitical risk (which was a topic of considerable discussion at a tech conference I attended late last fall) and the current political climate, there's a significant mindset that the US should be pulling back a lot of things to its own borders where practical even if not optimal at the moment.
scarface_74 2y ago
Tesla makes a lot of promises that it can’t keep and losing money and market share globally. I doubt Waymo is going to be a big deal in much of the US over the next decade. Even if they do figure out all of the technical issues. People will accept hundreds dying from car crashes. But not one dying from autonomous cars.
matwood 2y ago
> Who can compete with Tesla BYD says hi.

willvarfar 2y ago

The Chinese? It sounds flippant but the US hasn't got some unassailable moat around chip production or their application.

ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
It's not a small feat. China would have to: 1: Take over Taiwan to get TSML under their control 2: Find a way to make a deal with ASML for the needed lithography machines 3: Somehow aquire the knowhow that Nvidia has Taiwan would require a conflict with the US. ASML is a dutch company but seems to be somehow under US control. I have not yet figured out the exact setup there. And Nvidia is a US company.
- willvarfar 2y ago
  China has steadily been developing its own processes and the laser tech needed for smaller sizes. It is very clear that both US and China are racing to onshore and establish sovereign control of chip production. Sucks to be Taiwanese right now. The "silicon shield" is evaporating.
  - ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
    Citation needed. I have yet to see anything that hints at China being able to catch up with ASML+TSMC+Nvidia.
    - themagician 2y ago
      They are trying, and will eventually catch up, the same way they have in software and in hardware in many other spaces. Maybe it will take another 10 years. Maybe another 10 months. This idea that EUVL is—and always will be—outside of the reach of China is, frankly, silly. It's a silly strategy to maintain dominance. They will straight up steal the technology if needed. We should stop pretending like we can roadblock the technological development of the largest country. It's just going to make the fall that much harder. Once they do attain the ability to manufactuer EUVL domestically, capital is going to flood out of US tech stocks like no tomorrow. You haven't seen anything that hints at it, because most news about what happens in China doesn't leave China. The propoganda machine is hard at work reminding you that China is terrible and eveyrone in China is poor. You'll learn about China catching up only after it's already happened.
      - ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
        news about what happens in China doesn't leave China Then how do you know?
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        That’s just a dumb red herring strawman take on news about China. You can be perfectly informed about what is happening in China, you can also be misled by their propaganda as well. China will eventually catch up in the two areas it is lacking (performant and economical semiconductors and jet turbines) since they are throwing billions at it, but they won’t pass the west overnight (it will still take a few years, maybe a decade).
- tibbydudeza 2y ago
  UEV patents are held by the DOD so the US get's to decide who get's the machines.

rtkwe 2y ago

Deepseek seems to prove there's no super secret sauce that makes these models irreproducible outside the US and that the companies here are suffering a bit from the glut of cash/credits leading them to burn tons of extra processing power that could have been optimized away.

ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
DeepSeek has been trained on US hardware.
- rtkwe 2y ago
  US hardware in what sense? My understanding was it was trained on spare compute owned by the parent company but I didn't bother looking that deep.
  - ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
    Trained on Nvidia GPUs.
    - rtkwe 2y ago
      The US AI industry does have easier access to them but again Deepseek proves countries outside the US can get enough access to them to produce similarly powerful models. Unless the US really clamps down on exports of cards, which will be hard given they're made overseas and only designed in the US, it's not like they're a unique resource only US companies can access.
827a 2y ago
A nice model, does not a billion dollar company make. The hard part of AI is not the model; Apple needs people to do the 80% rest-of-the-work; how do you make AI useful to the average person? How can we get inference on edge devices as cheap and efficient as possible? Models are boring. Everyone fully expects that we'll see an N% increase in intelligence every six months now. Yawn. The exciting thing now is: What are we using AI for?

ghaff 2y ago

With the combination of very real geopolitical risk (which was a topic of considerable discussion at a tech conference I attended late last fall) and the current political climate, there's a significant mindset that the US should be pulling back a lot of things to its own borders where practical even if not optimal at the moment.

scarface_74 2y ago

Tesla makes a lot of promises that it can’t keep and losing money and market share globally. I doubt Waymo is going to be a big deal in much of the US over the next decade. Even if they do figure out all of the technical issues. People will accept hundreds dying from car crashes. But not one dying from autonomous cars.

matwood 2y ago

> Who can compete with Tesla BYD says hi.