3 ms·

It’s several factors and all of your alternatives are true to some degree: 1. An h20 is about 1.5 generations behind Blackwell. This chip looks closer to about

by bbatha 1y ago

It’s several factors and all of your alternatives are true to some degree: 1. An h20 is about 1.5 generations behind Blackwell. This chip looks closer to about 2 generations behind top end Blackwell chips. So ~5ish years behind is not as impressive especially since EUV is likely going to be a major obstacle to catching up which China has no capacity for 2. Nvidia continues to dominate on the software side. Amd chips have been competitive on paper for a while and have had limited uptake. Now Chinese government mandates could obviously correct this after substantial investment in the software stack — but this is probably several years behind. 3. China has poured trillions of dollars into its academic system and graduates more than 3x the number of electrical engineers the US does. The US immigration system has also been training Chinese students but having a much more limited work visa program has transferred a lot of knowledge back without even touching IP issues 4. Of course ip theft covers some of it

bangaladore 1y ago
> China has poured trillions of dollars into its academic system and graduates more than 3x the number of electrical engineers the US does. This metric is not as important as it seems when they have ~5x the population.
- jacomoRodriguez 1y ago
  It is. The outcome rate will not grow by the relative number of electrical engineers to population but by the absolute number of the engineers.
  - bangaladore 1y ago
    In theory, but I'm not sure that's true in practice. There are plenty of mundane, non-groundbreaking tasks that will likely be done by those electrical engineers and the more people, the more space, the more tasks are to be done. And not to mention more engineers does not equal better engineers. And the types to work on these sorts of projects are going to be the best engineers, not the "okay" ones. It's certainly non-linear.
    - immibis 1y ago
      The more engineers you can sample from (in absolute number), the better (in absolute goodness, whatever that is) the top, say, 500 of them are going to be.
      - KerryJones 1y ago
        This is not necessarily true. Hypothetical, if most breakthroughs are coming from PHDs and they aren't making any PHDs, then that pool is not necessarily larger.
      - bangaladore 1y ago
        That's assuming top-tier engineers are a fixed percent of graduates. That's not true and has never been. Does 5x the number of math graduates increase the number of people with ability like Terrance Tao? Or even meaningfully increase the number of top tier mathematicians? It really doesn't. Same with any other science or art. There is a human factor involved.
        immibis 1y ago
        Suppose there's only one Terrance Tao. Then sampling from 5x the number of people increases the probability he's in the sample (by about 5x). Suppose there's more than one. Then sampling from 5x the number of people increases the average number of him that you get (by about 5x).
    - tonyhart7 1y ago
      "not to mention more engineers does not equal better engineers." funny that you mention this because many top AI talent from big tech companies are from chinnese Ivy league graduate US literally importing AI talent war as highest as ever and yet you still have doubt
      - bangaladore 1y ago
        You just said what I said. I didn't say that 100% of the graduates are stupid, but certainly not all high tier either. We aren't in extreme need of the average electrical engineer or the average software engineer. That's a fact. Look at unemployment rates.
- stefan_ 1y ago
  Doesn’t seem to work for India. Wuhan university alone probably has more impact than the sum of. Of course a competent state and strategic investment matters.
Melatonic 1y ago
They also have some insane power generation capability - doesn't seem that far fetched that they just build a shitload of slower chips and eat the costs of lower power efficiency.

by bbatha 1y ago

bangaladore 1y ago

> China has poured trillions of dollars into its academic system and graduates more than 3x the number of electrical engineers the US does. This metric is not as important as it seems when they have ~5x the population.

jacomoRodriguez 1y ago
It is. The outcome rate will not grow by the relative number of electrical engineers to population but by the absolute number of the engineers.
- bangaladore 1y ago
  In theory, but I'm not sure that's true in practice. There are plenty of mundane, non-groundbreaking tasks that will likely be done by those electrical engineers and the more people, the more space, the more tasks are to be done. And not to mention more engineers does not equal better engineers. And the types to work on these sorts of projects are going to be the best engineers, not the "okay" ones. It's certainly non-linear.
  - immibis 1y ago
    The more engineers you can sample from (in absolute number), the better (in absolute goodness, whatever that is) the top, say, 500 of them are going to be.
    - KerryJones 1y ago
      This is not necessarily true. Hypothetical, if most breakthroughs are coming from PHDs and they aren't making any PHDs, then that pool is not necessarily larger.
    - bangaladore 1y ago
      That's assuming top-tier engineers are a fixed percent of graduates. That's not true and has never been. Does 5x the number of math graduates increase the number of people with ability like Terrance Tao? Or even meaningfully increase the number of top tier mathematicians? It really doesn't. Same with any other science or art. There is a human factor involved.
      - immibis 1y ago
        Suppose there's only one Terrance Tao. Then sampling from 5x the number of people increases the probability he's in the sample (by about 5x). Suppose there's more than one. Then sampling from 5x the number of people increases the average number of him that you get (by about 5x).
  - tonyhart7 1y ago
    "not to mention more engineers does not equal better engineers." funny that you mention this because many top AI talent from big tech companies are from chinnese Ivy league graduate US literally importing AI talent war as highest as ever and yet you still have doubt
    - bangaladore 1y ago
      You just said what I said. I didn't say that 100% of the graduates are stupid, but certainly not all high tier either. We aren't in extreme need of the average electrical engineer or the average software engineer. That's a fact. Look at unemployment rates.
stefan_ 1y ago
Doesn’t seem to work for India. Wuhan university alone probably has more impact than the sum of. Of course a competent state and strategic investment matters.

Melatonic 1y ago

They also have some insane power generation capability - doesn't seem that far fetched that they just build a shitload of slower chips and eat the costs of lower power efficiency.