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You don’t think the export controls on Nvidia chips accelerated Chinese investment in ML processors and therefore their independence -> dominance in the space?

Workaccount2 1y ago
Building SOTA semiconductors is more art than science. All the best artists are in Taiwan. You don't just buy (or copy) and ASML litho and turn it on. Just like you don't buy a horsehair brush and start painting Picassos. It's even more difficult than that because there are something like ~1000 sub processes and each one needs a world renowned artist in that specific art to get it done. Its the reason why even Samsung can't match TSMC despite having the same tools and capital.
- smokefoot 1y ago
  Or intel … but I think Samsung comes considerably closer. I’m not close to it.
yorwba 1y ago
The export controls made it difficult for Chinese companies to acquire large numbers of GPUs, which prevented them from expanding business models that rely on buying more GPUs to serve more customers, which means that Chinese companies have much, much lower budgets for GPU procurement than their American counterparts. https://chinai.substack.com/p/chinai-323-the-ai-deflation-of-chinas https://chinai.substack.com/p/chinai-323-the-ai-deflation-of... So a new homegrown chip would have to capture a very large share of this relatively small market to make significant volume. That makes it rather risky for profit-driven investors. Politically directed investment probably increased, but in the end the private sector also needs to be on board.
- rapsey 1y ago
  The market size for chinese chips is much like EVs. The entire world outside of the US. Like I said, Chinese dominance is inevitable.
  - yorwba 1y ago
    Most of the rest of the world can buy Nvidia if they want to. And I don't think the EV comparison works, since China already had a large domestic market and established ICE car companies who could afford to electrify some of their lineup and slowly gain market share this way.
    - rapsey 1y ago
      That is not at all the case. Biden export controls for nvida chips are still in place. China also has a large domestic market for chips. The rest of the world would gladly buy competitive Chinese chips.

Workaccount2 1y ago

Building SOTA semiconductors is more art than science. All the best artists are in Taiwan. You don't just buy (or copy) and ASML litho and turn it on. Just like you don't buy a horsehair brush and start painting Picassos. It's even more difficult than that because there are something like ~1000 sub processes and each one needs a world renowned artist in that specific art to get it done. Its the reason why even Samsung can't match TSMC despite having the same tools and capital.

smokefoot 1y ago
Or intel … but I think Samsung comes considerably closer. I’m not close to it.

yorwba 1y ago

The export controls made it difficult for Chinese companies to acquire large numbers of GPUs, which prevented them from expanding business models that rely on buying more GPUs to serve more customers, which means that Chinese companies have much, much lower budgets for GPU procurement than their American counterparts. https://chinai.substack.com/p/chinai-323-the-ai-deflation-of-chinas https://chinai.substack.com/p/chinai-323-the-ai-deflation-of... So a new homegrown chip would have to capture a very large share of this relatively small market to make significant volume. That makes it rather risky for profit-driven investors. Politically directed investment probably increased, but in the end the private sector also needs to be on board.

rapsey 1y ago
The market size for chinese chips is much like EVs. The entire world outside of the US. Like I said, Chinese dominance is inevitable.
- yorwba 1y ago
  Most of the rest of the world can buy Nvidia if they want to. And I don't think the EV comparison works, since China already had a large domestic market and established ICE car companies who could afford to electrify some of their lineup and slowly gain market share this way.
  - rapsey 1y ago
    That is not at all the case. Biden export controls for nvida chips are still in place. China also has a large domestic market for chips. The rest of the world would gladly buy competitive Chinese chips.