5 ms·

US blocks Intel from selling Xeon chips to Chinese supercomputer projects

45 points by fspeech 12y ago

ComputerGuru 12y ago
Big discussion already on HN from just yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9349116 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9349116
- fspeech 12y ago
  Thanks for the link. Didn't see that one before submitting this.
TheMagicHorsey 12y ago
This is a big banner ad for the US State Department that says in 100 point font, we are too stupid to figure out ways to actually effectively constrain our enemies, so we will settle for symbolic gestures that will screw American commercial interests, and accomplish nothing. Stupidity of the highest order. Xeon chips can be sourced by using an intermediary that orders them for some other "legitimate" use. E.g., you go find some company in Germany that makes servers for data centers, and order X amount of Xeon servers from them through an intermediary. There is no way to stop your adversaries from getting commodities that go into the general flow of commerce. The fact that the US State Department does this indicates that they don't understand the way the world works, more than anything else.
- 13 12y ago
  Both parties affected know that. Lots of things in the world are simply symbolic.
- joshuapants 12y ago
  > Xeon chips can be sourced by using an intermediary That was my first thought, there's nothing stopping them from getting them from a middleman. I guess it would drive up the cost of acquiring them.
- transfire 12y ago
  > constrain our enemies Well there is problem el numero uno, seeing everyone as an enemy.
  - undersuit 12y ago
    Whitelists are always easier if you're OK with false positives.
  - cmelbye 12y ago
    They are now actively sponsoring attacks against private corporations that (indirectly) assist Chinese citizens in circumventing blanket information censorship imposed by the government. I'm not a fan of making enemies either, but that sure doesn't sound friendly to me.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  Yes, but watching whose order books suddenly expand in proportion to the size of the blocked channels provides intelligence about who those intermediaries might be, which is likely the real purpose.
  - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
    Huh? Wouldn't it have been simpler just to have Intel give the information? Blocking US interests from selling the components to the Chinese super folks won't stop some other Chinese supplier from shifting them over there. It's not as though we're going to stop selling (or manufacturing) Xeons outside the continental US.
    - anigbrowl 12y ago
      That's not what I meant. If you block the supercomputer center from buying Xeons directly, then seeing who else places orders to take up the slack for the project tells you something valuable about who has relationships with the Chinese defense establishment. It's not that we care about controlling access to Xeons, which are easy enough to buy, but that we'd like to understand Chinese defense procurement supply chains to a greater degree than we do.
- walshemj 12y ago
  ah no I recall receiving kit (a 300mb drive) back in the late 70's that came with a whole wodge of paperwork promising all sorts of penalties if we resold it to a number of other named states. The same would apply today reselling things on the banned list to unapproved states.
ryan-c 12y ago
Title is misleading, the action taken prevents all US companies from selling them a wide range of technology products.
- fspeech 12y ago
  What other components in their supercomputers require end user licensing and are exclusively supplied by US companies?
  - colechristensen 12y ago
    I believe it is somewhat of a poison pill, pick one: * Don't do business in the U.S. * Don't sell certain high technology assets to non-allied foreign powers. In a similar theme, Swiss banks are free to practice as much secrecy as they want but _only_ if they keep their business out of the United States. They haven't been and as such the justice department has been smashing them with billion dollar fines for tax evasion and money laundering. Several hundred years old banks have been forced to close because of this.
    - fspeech 12y ago
      "End-Use control" is burdensome on any high volume commodity product. Without requiring end-use control there is no stopping a middleman outside of US reach from selling on the products to someone else. This is different from banking as we are talking about commodity parts here. For example, Iranian nuclear enrichment plants allegedly used Siemens controllers, c.f. Stuxnet.
grandalf 12y ago
Can anyone frame this in terms of how much more money China will have to spend to build the equivalent cluster using non-Xeon CPUs?
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  It would probably be cheaper with AMD CPUs, slightly more IBM/Power. It won't be a financial inconvenience. But, why would they need to use a different CPU? They shouldn't have any trouble sourcing Xeon processors despite the "ban". FYI, The Chinese already own the #1 spot. (at least of the supers that are known about). http://www.top500.org/lists/2014/11/ http://www.top500.org/lists/2014/11/
- rasz_pl 12y ago
  this is good spending, goes straight into R&D and education.
minthd 12y ago
The OpenPower alliance has some Chinese companies who develop chips and servers using the IBM IP, and there would be servers released at Q2-2015. And the Chinese government is encouraging Chinese companies to use that architecture. This current move might deter the Chinese from using the OpenPower and counting on that design, because it might have similar restrictions in the future, although it's hard to tell how big of an impact such restrictions would have on IP. And on the other hand, in the context of the Chinese computing shift, the u.s. or intel don't really lose much from this move. BTW: Could china seriously compete(and take large shares) in the cloud/hosting businesses using servers installed in china, assuming hw and power is cheaper,given the latency limitation ?

45 points by fspeech 12y ago

Big discussion already on HN from just yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9349116 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9349116

fspeech 12y ago
Thanks for the link. Didn't see that one before submitting this.

TheMagicHorsey 12y ago

This is a big banner ad for the US State Department that says in 100 point font, we are too stupid to figure out ways to actually effectively constrain our enemies, so we will settle for symbolic gestures that will screw American commercial interests, and accomplish nothing. Stupidity of the highest order. Xeon chips can be sourced by using an intermediary that orders them for some other "legitimate" use. E.g., you go find some company in Germany that makes servers for data centers, and order X amount of Xeon servers from them through an intermediary. There is no way to stop your adversaries from getting commodities that go into the general flow of commerce. The fact that the US State Department does this indicates that they don't understand the way the world works, more than anything else.

13 12y ago
Both parties affected know that. Lots of things in the world are simply symbolic.
joshuapants 12y ago
> Xeon chips can be sourced by using an intermediary That was my first thought, there's nothing stopping them from getting them from a middleman. I guess it would drive up the cost of acquiring them.
transfire 12y ago
> constrain our enemies Well there is problem el numero uno, seeing everyone as an enemy.
- undersuit 12y ago
  Whitelists are always easier if you're OK with false positives.
- cmelbye 12y ago
  They are now actively sponsoring attacks against private corporations that (indirectly) assist Chinese citizens in circumventing blanket information censorship imposed by the government. I'm not a fan of making enemies either, but that sure doesn't sound friendly to me.
anigbrowl 12y ago
Yes, but watching whose order books suddenly expand in proportion to the size of the blocked channels provides intelligence about who those intermediaries might be, which is likely the real purpose.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  Huh? Wouldn't it have been simpler just to have Intel give the information? Blocking US interests from selling the components to the Chinese super folks won't stop some other Chinese supplier from shifting them over there. It's not as though we're going to stop selling (or manufacturing) Xeons outside the continental US.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    That's not what I meant. If you block the supercomputer center from buying Xeons directly, then seeing who else places orders to take up the slack for the project tells you something valuable about who has relationships with the Chinese defense establishment. It's not that we care about controlling access to Xeons, which are easy enough to buy, but that we'd like to understand Chinese defense procurement supply chains to a greater degree than we do.
walshemj 12y ago
ah no I recall receiving kit (a 300mb drive) back in the late 70's that came with a whole wodge of paperwork promising all sorts of penalties if we resold it to a number of other named states. The same would apply today reselling things on the banned list to unapproved states.

ryan-c 12y ago

Title is misleading, the action taken prevents all US companies from selling them a wide range of technology products.

fspeech 12y ago
What other components in their supercomputers require end user licensing and are exclusively supplied by US companies?
- colechristensen 12y ago
  I believe it is somewhat of a poison pill, pick one: * Don't do business in the U.S. * Don't sell certain high technology assets to non-allied foreign powers. In a similar theme, Swiss banks are free to practice as much secrecy as they want but _only_ if they keep their business out of the United States. They haven't been and as such the justice department has been smashing them with billion dollar fines for tax evasion and money laundering. Several hundred years old banks have been forced to close because of this.
  - fspeech 12y ago
    "End-Use control" is burdensome on any high volume commodity product. Without requiring end-use control there is no stopping a middleman outside of US reach from selling on the products to someone else. This is different from banking as we are talking about commodity parts here. For example, Iranian nuclear enrichment plants allegedly used Siemens controllers, c.f. Stuxnet.

grandalf 12y ago

Can anyone frame this in terms of how much more money China will have to spend to build the equivalent cluster using non-Xeon CPUs?

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
It would probably be cheaper with AMD CPUs, slightly more IBM/Power. It won't be a financial inconvenience. But, why would they need to use a different CPU? They shouldn't have any trouble sourcing Xeon processors despite the "ban". FYI, The Chinese already own the #1 spot. (at least of the supers that are known about). http://www.top500.org/lists/2014/11/ http://www.top500.org/lists/2014/11/
rasz_pl 12y ago
this is good spending, goes straight into R&D and education.

minthd 12y ago

The OpenPower alliance has some Chinese companies who develop chips and servers using the IBM IP, and there would be servers released at Q2-2015. And the Chinese government is encouraging Chinese companies to use that architecture. This current move might deter the Chinese from using the OpenPower and counting on that design, because it might have similar restrictions in the future, although it's hard to tell how big of an impact such restrictions would have on IP. And on the other hand, in the context of the Chinese computing shift, the u.s. or intel don't really lose much from this move. BTW: Could china seriously compete(and take large shares) in the cloud/hosting businesses using servers installed in china, assuming hw and power is cheaper,given the latency limitation ?