Thread

1. HarHarVeryFunny · 1789937583 · focus · HN ↗

   On a related note, I was reading yesterday that apparently the real bottleneck for Chinese production of AI accelerators is HBM production, not processors or ASML equipment.

   The lack of ASML EUV machines certainly hurts, and pushing DUV so hard results in abysmal yields of good chips, but you can compensate by running more wafers or making smaller chips, and the net result is that Huawei's Ascend production volume is limited by CXMT's HBM capacity not processor dies.

   The problem is that HBM manufacture requires many steps (die thinning, via drilling, plating, alignment) where the equipment used by everyone else (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron) is also blocked by sanctions, so the Chinese are having to develop all of this themselves too, which they have, but yields are currently low, even when using shorter HBM stacks.

   1. jacquesm · 1789951954 · focus · HN ↗

      The only thing the West is achieving here is that sooner or later China will be able to compete on their own terms rather than ours. It may buy some time but the end result is very predictable.

      1. stingraycharles · 1789952664 · focus · HN ↗

         It baffles me how shortsighted the policymaking here is. Like, what did they expect to happen?

         1. odo1242 · 1789961233 · focus · HN ↗

            They probably weren't expecting AI foundation models / model research to be quite as fungible as they are

            1. safety1st · 1789965572 · focus · HN ↗

               Yes.

               Over the last 20 years the economy has become dysfunctional. It no longer really resembles a free market; monopolies have established barriers to entry everywhere. And the biggest investors are awash with helicopter money that's been doled out for favors by the political class.

               So those investors have tons of cash to burn and surprisingly few opportunities. Even within Silicon Valley/VC there are surprisingly few who seem to really understand the fundamental economics of software. Or perhaps those economics just aren't that important when you have billions of dollars on hand and cash is obviously not going to get you a return. Any whisper of possible exponential growth is worth throwing money at. Crypto? Why not. AI? Why not. Datacenters? Why not. Tulips? Why not.

               This is by all definitions an empire in decline. Everything is broken or fake. Everyone is afraid to do what needs to be done. Power forbids it. So we're all just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Our secret police aren't as bad as the late stage USSR's yet, but hold Uncle Sam's beer...

               (That's not a recommendation to try and time the nadir, by the way, as it could easily be 50 years away.)

               1. piva00 · 1789977989 · focus · HN ↗

                  It started way before the last 20 years, the past 40 years have created the conditions for this to happen.

                  Overfinancialisation of the economy while removing safeguards to keep markets functional, like anti-trust enforcement, are the main forces behind this erosion. Through finance the focus of companies is completely shifted away from producing good products and services, and into how to extract more paper wealth from existing structures to the detriment of products.

                  Not enforcing anti-trust and letting behemoths to form which cannot be competed against since with their amount of capital they can either buy their competition outright or just price dump for long enough to make competition non-viable.

                  It's the failure of neoliberalism, and that agenda has been pushed into Western countries since the 1980s-1990s, it made enormous wealth for the few at the top while eroding whole societies, economically and socially, it's all dysfunctional.

                  1. odo1242 · 1789986272 · focus · HN ↗

                     I feel like my point is being over extrapolated a bit. All I was saying is that people in 2020 believed AI companies had much more of a moat then they actually do - that other companies would struggle to obtain enough data (y’know, downloading the internet to train models wasn’t legal back then) or resources to compete

                     1. piva00 · 1789990661 · focus · HN ↗

                        I replied to the extrapolation, not to your comment directly, I think your point might be more fitting under that comment than mine, I just drilled down from the points above mine.

                        1. odo1242 · 1790021594 · focus · HN ↗

                           Fair

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