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
> 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.
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.
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
I do believe your first sentence, but the second one ... doesn't really follow.
The unnatural and sudden nature of the US chip embargo has galvanized the Chinese companies to speed up development. It makes economic sense to do so rather than pay inflated rates to essentially smuggle a necessary good, while never knowing if the embargo will be tightened and those under-the-table supply chains dry up as well.
Yes, there was a plan, but what was planned for 5 years from now is being done today, because if you wait 5 years, you'll be so far behind thanks to the effect of the embargo.
The AI revolution has led to everyone including US companies working to build their own GPUs there is zero proof or reason to think embargo’s are the cause. As I said, China was already working to build their own capacity
zicohacks · · focus · HN ↗
menaerus · · focus · HN ↗
> 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.
gpt5 · · focus · HN ↗
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.
edgyquant · · focus · HN ↗
true_religion · · focus · HN ↗
The unnatural and sudden nature of the US chip embargo has galvanized the Chinese companies to speed up development. It makes economic sense to do so rather than pay inflated rates to essentially smuggle a necessary good, while never knowing if the embargo will be tightened and those under-the-table supply chains dry up as well.
Yes, there was a plan, but what was planned for 5 years from now is being done today, because if you wait 5 years, you'll be so far behind thanks to the effect of the embargo.
edgyquant · · focus · HN ↗