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How GLM built its own inference infrastructure

411 points · 285 comments · whiteros_e

  1. zicohacks · · focus · HN ↗
    US chip export restrictions may actually be an advantage for China's AI Infrastructure. Chinese companies are forced to speed up developing their own AI chips
    1. menaerus · · focus · HN ↗
      It was evident that this will happen.

      > Compared with our initial baseline on the same hardware, we achieved a 3× improvement in end-to-end serving performance, reaching hardware efficiency and per-token cost comparable to mainstream NVIDIA GPUs. This demonstrates that Chinese chips can support frontier-model inference efficiently and economically at scale.

      1. gpt5 · · focus · HN ↗
        I’ll just note that NVidia’s moat has never been inference, and there are many chips used at a much larger scale than Chinese chips for inference like TPUs and AMD chips.

        The other part is that it’s a bit of a meme here to say that the chip restriction is actually helping China (or shall I say, coordinated effort?). For once, we know that China has put a lot of pressure on the US to relax these controls multiple times. In addition to large chip smuggling networks (e.g. 22% of NVidia’s worldwide revenue magically comes from Singapore, and the ratio has been growing).

        Lastly, assuming acceleration in AI (which we ARE seeing), there might not be time to China to catch up. The best estimate right now is that the first EUV chips from China will not come out before 2030. By that time who knows how powerful AI will be.

        All I’m saying is that the discussion is so one sided and a bit baselesss with no nuance, that it seems either a meme/groupthink in the community or coordinated. If anything, the data suggests that the US should increase its export controls and better track the tech supply chain if it wants to further curb Chinese progress.

        1. edgyquant · · focus · HN ↗
          The idea that China wasn’t working hard to build their own chips is a political talking point period. Nothing has been sped up here, China was always going to do this and the backlash you see from people who are against it is only proof that restrictions do hurt them
          1. dominotw · · focus · HN ↗
            > The idea that China wasn’t working hard to build their own chips is a political talking point period.

            never heard of this 'talking point' . who is even saying this?

            1. stanfordkid · · focus · HN ↗
              It's an implied corollary: when folks say that "blocking US Chips is what led China to build it's own" they are implying it is US export restrictions that pushed China to innovate. OP is saying this isn't necessarily true. I don't think it is either: China seems to have succeeded due to a centrally planned economy that values independence, with high amounts of strategic government led technology investment.
              1. vcryan · · focus · HN ↗
                It can be both. They were already doing it and the situation made it more urgent.
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