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Bans on Chinese open weight models being used in the US and bans on AI chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment being exported to China are two extremely

by erwald 2mo ago

Bans on Chinese open weight models being used in the US and bans on AI chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment being exported to China are two extremely different things, and it's not inconsistent in any way to oppose one and endorse another.

doom2 2mo ago
> bans on AI chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment being exported In some ways, a ban on semiconductor manufacturing equipment exports is also a good way to keep the price of consumer electronics and other goods that depends on memory high because of the potentially decade+ long shortage of RAM we're looking at. I wonder how people here would explain to someone outside the tech bubble how it's good, actually, that those prices keep rising because it means we're preventing China from getting better at AI.
- Paria_Stark 2mo ago
  It's good because I have not written a line of code nor thought for myself in a whole year man. And yet I can still get YC money don't you see?
basch 2mo ago
is it export if they take control of the entire island manufacturing it. banning export is short sighted and doesnt address any problem at a scale longer than months or maybe at most a few years.
- Marha01 2mo ago
  > is it export if they take control of the entire island manufacturing it. If.
- ianm218 2mo ago
  The export controls on chips have been in place for many years at this point. And China has invested immensely in sovereign chip industry for a long time and is still incredibly behind.
  - adrian_b 2mo ago
    Unfortunately "incredibly behind" can be said about most countries of the world, many of which had electronics industries that have been destroyed during the nineties of the last century, but not about China. China is already able to design and fabricate good enough CPUs, GPUs, DDR5 memories and flash memories. For now, their fabrication costs are significantly higher than those of TSMC, Intel or Samsung, because they have to use expensive workarounds for not having access to EUV lithography. Nonetheless, where the price does not matter much, like for supercomputers or military technology, China can afford to match or exceed the US capabilities with their internal production. With the high current prices for memories, the Chinese memory companies can obtain excellent profits with their products. Which is why the US congressmen John Moolenaar (R-MI) and George Whitesides (D-CA) have requested a ban on Chinese memories, presumably at the request of Micron, who is scared of the competition. For now, China is even ahead of Japan, though hopefully that will change soon if the Japanese Rapidus meets its targets. While Europe is the best in a few niche domains, it has a lot of things that cannot be done within its borders, so it is much less self-sufficient than China in electronics technology.
    - ianm218 2mo ago
      > Nonetheless, where the price does not matter much, like for supercomputers or military technology, China can afford to match or exceed the US capabilities with their internal production No they can’t. They are seriously compute constrained and no amount of money will close the gap in the short term. The chip export controls have been incredibly effective in that regard. I don’t have much input on US companies buying Chinese memory but there are more bottleknecks than just memory.
      - adrian_b 2mo ago
        Their production capacity is constrained, but not so constrained as to prevent them to demonstrate a supercomputer faster than any US supercomputer, made with custom CPUs designed and fabricated in China. The limited production capacity means that they will not become exporters of CPUs or GPUs any time soon, but it does not mean that they cannot satisfy their internal necessities in any critical sectors. The technology that they use for CPUs and GPUs is about at the level that TSMC was 5 years ago. That may seem much, but there are a lot of people who are quite satisfied with computers older than that, and do not intend to upgrade them soon. The main consequence of the older technology is a higher power consumption, because otherwise their designs are quite up-to-date in the attainable throughput. Therefore their datacenters must consume more energy, but that is hardly a problem in China. The chip export controls have only forced them to design and fabricate their own CPUs and GPUs, instead of buying them from USA, and now they have become able to do this. Without USA forcing them to do this, they might have remained dependent on imports from USA for decades, but now USA has lost the opportunity to ever play this card again. Thus USA has lost a leverage that could have been useful in a real conflict. Such export controls are effective only for a short time, so they must be used only when there is a clear immediate goal.
anonzzzies 2mo ago
Banning hardware is helping China in the long run though. And long is not actually very long. They will beat 'the west' (even though they are all made in the east now) in semiconductors because of this nonsense within 50 years. And also in AI capabilities. Making capable adversaries more competitive and angry is often not really a great strategy.
- ozgung 2mo ago
  Nvidia CEO had a viral rant about this, implying they don’t really have a moat against China other than Chinese researchers _prefer_ to stay in the CUDA ecosystem. If you force them out then they are capable of building their own chips and ecosystem which may become the new industry standard outside America. He didn’t say this explicitly due to his role but implied that it can be easier than it looks and it’s more of a resource allocation problem.
  - kaon_2 2mo ago
    Yes of course but the Nvidia CEO is hardly an unbiased observer. He wants to sell to China and is looking for arguments to build his case. Similarly to how Dario isn't an unbiased observer either. So who is? And who has the knowledge to say something meaningful? Universities? Professors?
    - hnfong 2mo ago
      Jensen Huang is biased but if his interests align with yours (i.e. not wanting to concede the Chinese chip market by banning western exports) then maybe you should listen to him.

by erwald 2mo ago

doom2 2mo ago

> bans on AI chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment being exported In some ways, a ban on semiconductor manufacturing equipment exports is also a good way to keep the price of consumer electronics and other goods that depends on memory high because of the potentially decade+ long shortage of RAM we're looking at. I wonder how people here would explain to someone outside the tech bubble how it's good, actually, that those prices keep rising because it means we're preventing China from getting better at AI.

Paria_Stark 2mo ago
It's good because I have not written a line of code nor thought for myself in a whole year man. And yet I can still get YC money don't you see?

basch 2mo ago

is it export if they take control of the entire island manufacturing it. banning export is short sighted and doesnt address any problem at a scale longer than months or maybe at most a few years.

Marha01 2mo ago
> is it export if they take control of the entire island manufacturing it. If.
ianm218 2mo ago
The export controls on chips have been in place for many years at this point. And China has invested immensely in sovereign chip industry for a long time and is still incredibly behind.
- adrian_b 2mo ago
  Unfortunately "incredibly behind" can be said about most countries of the world, many of which had electronics industries that have been destroyed during the nineties of the last century, but not about China. China is already able to design and fabricate good enough CPUs, GPUs, DDR5 memories and flash memories. For now, their fabrication costs are significantly higher than those of TSMC, Intel or Samsung, because they have to use expensive workarounds for not having access to EUV lithography. Nonetheless, where the price does not matter much, like for supercomputers or military technology, China can afford to match or exceed the US capabilities with their internal production. With the high current prices for memories, the Chinese memory companies can obtain excellent profits with their products. Which is why the US congressmen John Moolenaar (R-MI) and George Whitesides (D-CA) have requested a ban on Chinese memories, presumably at the request of Micron, who is scared of the competition. For now, China is even ahead of Japan, though hopefully that will change soon if the Japanese Rapidus meets its targets. While Europe is the best in a few niche domains, it has a lot of things that cannot be done within its borders, so it is much less self-sufficient than China in electronics technology.
  - ianm218 2mo ago
    > Nonetheless, where the price does not matter much, like for supercomputers or military technology, China can afford to match or exceed the US capabilities with their internal production No they can’t. They are seriously compute constrained and no amount of money will close the gap in the short term. The chip export controls have been incredibly effective in that regard. I don’t have much input on US companies buying Chinese memory but there are more bottleknecks than just memory.
    - adrian_b 2mo ago
      Their production capacity is constrained, but not so constrained as to prevent them to demonstrate a supercomputer faster than any US supercomputer, made with custom CPUs designed and fabricated in China. The limited production capacity means that they will not become exporters of CPUs or GPUs any time soon, but it does not mean that they cannot satisfy their internal necessities in any critical sectors. The technology that they use for CPUs and GPUs is about at the level that TSMC was 5 years ago. That may seem much, but there are a lot of people who are quite satisfied with computers older than that, and do not intend to upgrade them soon. The main consequence of the older technology is a higher power consumption, because otherwise their designs are quite up-to-date in the attainable throughput. Therefore their datacenters must consume more energy, but that is hardly a problem in China. The chip export controls have only forced them to design and fabricate their own CPUs and GPUs, instead of buying them from USA, and now they have become able to do this. Without USA forcing them to do this, they might have remained dependent on imports from USA for decades, but now USA has lost the opportunity to ever play this card again. Thus USA has lost a leverage that could have been useful in a real conflict. Such export controls are effective only for a short time, so they must be used only when there is a clear immediate goal.

anonzzzies 2mo ago

Banning hardware is helping China in the long run though. And long is not actually very long. They will beat 'the west' (even though they are all made in the east now) in semiconductors because of this nonsense within 50 years. And also in AI capabilities. Making capable adversaries more competitive and angry is often not really a great strategy.

ozgung 2mo ago
Nvidia CEO had a viral rant about this, implying they don’t really have a moat against China other than Chinese researchers _prefer_ to stay in the CUDA ecosystem. If you force them out then they are capable of building their own chips and ecosystem which may become the new industry standard outside America. He didn’t say this explicitly due to his role but implied that it can be easier than it looks and it’s more of a resource allocation problem.
- kaon_2 2mo ago
  Yes of course but the Nvidia CEO is hardly an unbiased observer. He wants to sell to China and is looking for arguments to build his case. Similarly to how Dario isn't an unbiased observer either. So who is? And who has the knowledge to say something meaningful? Universities? Professors?
  - hnfong 2mo ago
    Jensen Huang is biased but if his interests align with yours (i.e. not wanting to concede the Chinese chip market by banning western exports) then maybe you should listen to him.