Nvidia is obviously a US company, but the chips themselves are manufactured in Taiwan.
And of course China sees Taiwan as a rogue province, at at least treats invasion there as "on the table". While the US may decide to actively support Taiwan, at the very least a war over that will disrupt production.
Should Taiwan fall, and China choose to ban exports from there to the US, then the fun and games would really start.
As long as back-channels exist to supply the chips to China, then there's less incentive for China to control Taiwan. The ban exists as good politics (we don't ship to our adversaries) while the back-channels ensure they aren't forced into a position no-one wants them to be in.
> there's less incentive for China to control Taiwan.
a very minor effect imho. china doesn't want to control taiwan due to any economic reasons. It's ideological.
China doesn't want the model of a free, democratic society of chinese people to exist, because it proves that the CCP's authoritarianism isn't the only "good" model.
Look at how hong kong was cracked down; china took the opportunity to do it, when the economic bounties from hong kong was being usurped by shenzen (and to a degree, shanghai).
This is a somewhat shallow and more buzz phrasey explanation of it. China wanted to invade Taiwan long before it became a democracy. And China is adjacent to many prosperous democracies like Japan and South Korea. Not to mention the hundred million middle class Chinese tourists and numerous students who can see the developed democracies with their own eyes.
With Occam's razor, the simple answer is really that they consider it part of China for historical and cultural reasons. Taiwan did the same for many years.
> China doesn't want the model of a free, democratic society of chinese people to exist, because it proves that the CCP's authoritarianism isn't the only "good" model.
So was everything with Taiwan hunky dory when they were a murderous military dictatorship for all those decades[1]?
I thought the under-mentioned beef China had with Taiwan was the fact that the ROC took (and retains to this day) all the priceless cultural artifacts. The CCP would like those back in order to tie themselves to China's history.
It is ideological, but it isn't anything like China thinking that a "free, democratic society" is a threat. China has gotten incredibly rich under the CCP, the average stance is that its a great model. China thinks of Taiwan as a rogue province because of nationalism. A country of ethnic Chinese is both a reminder of the century of humiliation, and an affront to the idea of China being the nation of Chinese people. It is no different than Italy desiring Istria or South Tyrol, or Germany wanting Alsace Lorraine.
> China doesn't want the model of a free, democratic society of chinese people to exist, because it proves that the CCP's authoritarianism isn't the only "good" model.
Can I ask what led to you generating this idea?
As someone in Taiwan it really stood out to me as an odd take.
First, considering Taiwan to be a democratic society of "Chinese" people is odd. The vast majority of Taiwanese wouldn't use the English word "Chinese" to define themselves. There's interesting wordplay happening in Mandarin for a lot of words that the CPC now translates to "Chinese," such as 漢人 華人 vaguely for "ethnicity" and 中文 or 漢語 for language. There's a long conversation to be had there about the CPC engaging in cultural imperialism and Han supremacism as an alternative means of imperializing Taiwan and elsewhere, but I want to stay focused on your message.
Second, the CPC of course doesn't think their model is authoritarian or bad, so what do they have to fear from Taiwan? Propagandic messaging regarding Taiwan is, depending on your level of engagement with "Communism with Chinese Characteristics," either "Taiwan separatist and bad enemy" (low engagement) or "Chinese people on the Taiwan island are enslaved by capitalist overlords and being used as western pawns" (high engagement).
I really doubt that the CPC feels "challenged" by Taiwan, their language never speaks to it.
But Chinese citizens know the US exists? This feels like projection. The US wants to act as if stock markets and political yard signs are the only usable system.
Its not ideological, its to break out of the physical constraints setup by the US, to gain access to the pacific, and to the rest of asia. Simple geopolitics, just check a map.
This is such a ridiculous claim. China wants to unify with Taiwan well before US fully allows African American to vote, as guranteed by Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In the event of a invasion TMSC in Taiwan will cease to function. "TMSC and its Dutch chip machine supplier ASML have made joint plans to remotely disable the machines in the event of an invasion."
People seem to not realize that (just like them) Taiwan knows that China wants TSMC. Even if there wasn't a way to turn the machines off remotely in an invasion, do people not recognize that Taiwan will gladly make China blow up the facility, or do it themselves. The US said they'll do it if Taiwan won't. (Though this may change tomorrow [0])
But it's not just the facility that's important, it's the people. It's not like you can walk in and press a button and start making chips (not to mention the whole supply chain for the materials necessary for manufacturing). It's not a turkey operator...
If China somehow captured the facility without severe damage, do you really believe those engineers are just going to do the work? Or rather, do it to their best abilities? Typically people are not very happy when their country has been annexed. It's very easy to slow down production, to introduce error, and it doesn't take very many people resisting to shut down the whole operation, especially if many people are willing to at least "look the other way". All the while the US and others will happily the providing support and be trying to extract those engineers and they're families. (And other countries aren't going to be providing materials so China needs to jump an even bigger gap)
Taiwan knows their silicon shield. It exists by design. And it's resistant to more than an invasion. The chance of a China invasion leading to Chinese chip dominance within a decade after the invasion is near 0. It would only weaken the works supply, so it's just China shooting itself in the foot (maybe both and maybe an arm too). It'd be insane to hurt yourself more in an effort to hurt your enemy even a decent amount. Though it's still not out of the question.
In 2022 TSMC Chairman Mark Liu appeared in a rare interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakariya.In the interview, Liu categorically says that if China were to take over Taiwan, it would find TSMC’s facilities unusable because their secret ingredient is human capital and real-time international collaboration with companies for materials, software, hardware, and know-how.
If the factories weren't bombed before Taiwan fell to the communists, I'd imagine hey would still be cut off from western semiconductor technology, so they would still end up falling behind even if they could get them restarted.
> Should Taiwan fall, and China choose to ban exports from there to the US, then the fun and games would really start.
If it looked like Taiwan was actually going to fall, the first thing to be destroyed would be the fabs. There’s almost 0 chance China gets anything usable. If they thought they could, they would’ve invaded during Trump’s term.
Destroyed by who - the US or Taiwan? If by Taiwan, IMO it is extremely unlikely. Scorched earth tactics have only been used by the most bitter, determined combatants in a conflict, who are expecting a long protracted war. The cutting edge chips have enormous economic value but virtually no immediate or even medium term military value to China (the time it would take to design and start using them in hardware is years at least).
> The ban exists as good politics (we don't ship to our adversaries)
Do normal people really view china as an adversary? I see this constantly being pushed by politicians and pundits but, unlike other countries in my lifetime, I don't really see that much animosity from normal folk. Expats who resent the PRC? Absolutely. Racism? Definitely. But there's not much appetite for the demonization of our largest trade partner, nor do I think people buy that we would ever want actual conflict with them—kinetic or economic (sans them doing something comically evil, of course). Genocide aside (for which there is at best sparse evidence available to westerners) most of the ways that they're supposedly our adversaries just seem like what we were brought up to see as "competition".
Both of the last two administrations were driving pretty hard to distance from PRC. Given that, animosity from normal folk or lack thereof seems kind of vague/irrelevant?
Not sure why you're getting downvotes, it's a legitimate question.
There are different kinds of adversary. A traditional tactic in politics is to find someone to blame. Trump blames immigrants, Muslims and China. He translated this into economic action by putting tarrifs on Chinese goods. (Tarrifs are a terrible idea, but one of the few things the president can do unilaterally.)
Thanks to his years of anti-chinese rhetoric, I think there's a substantial number of people who gave drunk that kool-aid and see China as adversarial.
Geopolitically, China is investing heavily in influence. There are lots of programs in other countries (especially Africa and Asia) where they are fostering trade and building infrastructure. This comes largely at the expense of US influence.
Militarily they are growing, and are one of the few countries which could inflict serious losses on American forces. They wouldn't win (yet) but the American public has less appetite for high losses than the Chinese do.
None of which stops them being huge trading partners of course. But the pendulum is swinging, and that distresses a significant number of US folk.
China is no longer afraid that the US will back Taiwan. Last year Biden threatened Iran with "don't", and Iran "did", and the US did absolutely nothing. Biden has demonstrated that US security promises to allies mean nothing, not do even direct US threats, extremely expensive Navy not withstanding.
After Biden's responses to both Russian and Iranian aggression, do you think that China has any concerns anymore?
There exists a third possibility where the US and China sign an under the table deal for China to invade, the US to saber rattle and China to allow the flow of chips to continue. The present direction seems to be the US is "de-risking" from Taiwan by moving chip production to the US, so if China does invade they aren't caught in a bind.
> The present direction seems to be the US is "de-risking" from Taiwan by moving chip production to the US, so if China does invade they aren't caught in a bind.
This idea that the US is protecting Taiwan for its semiconductor prowess (aka the "silicon shield") is a very confusing idea to me as it ignores the period from the 40's to the 90's when Taiwan had no semiconductor manufacturing that wasn't being done as well or better elsewhere, yet the US was a ardent supporter, to the point of almost entirely shunning the People's Republic of China over it.
It's a smart sounding idea (especially if you don't know your 20th century Chinese history) but the facts just don't back it up.
But taiwan has nukes now in all but name? As the us becomes a non-reliable ally everyone with money and a shopping list bordering a totalitarian country heads for Pakistan ?
> As long as back-channels exist to supply the chips to China, then there's less incentive for China to control Taiwan. The ban exists as good politics (we don't ship to our adversaries) while the back-channels ensure they aren't forced into a position no-one wants them to be in.
Funny I was just literally thinking about this a few minutes before I opened this thread.
I think the TSMC restrictions on China is really bad for Taiwan in the next few years. First, it’s a huge revenue loss for Taiwan. Second, it creates a scenario in which China would take military action on Taiwan if they fall behind too far in AI due to the lack of the most advanced chips.
If I’m a Taiwan citizen, I would clamor for the government to negotiate with the US and Chinese government to allow Chinese companies to use TSMC fabs. It’s one sure way to delay military action.
>I think the TSMC restrictions on China is really bad for Taiwan in the next few years. First, it’s a huge revenue loss for Taiwan.
TSMC sells more than it is capable of producing. This will likely continue to be a limiter for the foreseeable future. No revenue is being lost as a result of limiting export to China.
>Second, it creates a scenario in which China would take military action on Taiwan if they fall behind too far in AI due to the lack of the most advanced chips.
China's interest in Taiwan existed long before TSMC, it is ideological, not economical.
>If I’m a Taiwan citizen, I would clamor for the government to negotiate with the US and Chinese government to allow Chinese companies to use TSMC fabs. It’s one sure way to delay military action.
I am a Taiwan citizen and the majority of us don't want this, evident by the results of our recent election. That said, see prior point.
>Second, it creates a scenario in which China would take military action on Taiwan if they fall behind too far in AI due to the lack of the most advanced chips.
What? Who goes to war for some chips that can be smuggled easily xd
We will see what happens - but given nvidias growth and how heavy they are now weighted I’m skeptical there will be any enforcement until well after the elections.
Neither party wants to look “bad for the economy”, even if the people harmed isn’t of significant size.
I mean voting ends in 12 hours except for all the situations where it doesn't.
The presidential election ends in December and all your local ones won't be certified today and in the event of a run-off or re-count voting also won't end today.
Nobody is a a bit of an exaggeration. Anyone who has been following finance noticed many major US news outlets covering when the job numbers dropped [0]. Yes it was really only covered for a day because the election hype is a bigger story.
Why did nobody talk about the floods in Nepal or mass suicides in Sudan? Clearly we should all be talking about jobs and the US economy!
I saw it in several business sections. Is that the the "nobody covering it" part? The numbers a likely due to several one-off occurrences that aren't like to hit semi-perfect status again for a while. No reason given the numbers that it's not a fluke with the history of the previous months.
They should cancel their patents or software copyright on the cuda apis as a response. The only reason they are dominant is because of their software control.
CUDA is not merely software control. Let's face it: it's tied to their architecture and evolves with their architecture. Ignore whatever patent and software copyright you are talking about, they are simply the best at implementing this programming model.
If you port CUDA over and want high performance, you must build very similar GPUs. And can you beat NVIDIA on building their own GPU architecture without much space for innovation?
And yes, this does mean that NVIDIA themselves is also facing increasingly absurd constraints and after a few generations CUDA as a programming model may not be sustainable any more.
Because we need them to make devices to power AI at this point and the only way around that is to open up the systems so that they interoperate because they effectively have a monopoly.
If national security interests drove development, the US would have local manufacturing of current-process-node chips instead of being dependent on TSMC.
This is just market forces at work, driven by the demand in China. There is money to be made, so business people (maybe incentivized by CCP) will find ways to avoid sanctions.
Nvidia probably could do more to counter this. But why would they? On paper everything looks fine and they make money off it.
As the article states, Singapore accounted for 20% (!) of Nvidias total revenue. You think management wasn't aware that something was going on? A country with about 2% of the GDP of the US and non of the large AI companies? Management either was involved or willfully looked the other way the alternative is that they are so grossly incompetent and non-involved in the company that it's hard to believe.
That’s like getting surprised that Delaware accounts for 60% of Fortune 500 companies. Singapore nowadays is the main financial hub that connects the East and the West.
"Nvidia claims it cannot control the final delivery location of its GPUs"
Unless Nvidia would be restricted from selling to anyone that is not under the same restrictions than they are, I'd say that is not just a claim but a thruth.
Btw. Don't these trade restrictions not just strengthen BRICS and accelerate their internal market development?
Readit News
And of course China sees Taiwan as a rogue province, at at least treats invasion there as "on the table". While the US may decide to actively support Taiwan, at the very least a war over that will disrupt production.
Should Taiwan fall, and China choose to ban exports from there to the US, then the fun and games would really start.
As long as back-channels exist to supply the chips to China, then there's less incentive for China to control Taiwan. The ban exists as good politics (we don't ship to our adversaries) while the back-channels ensure they aren't forced into a position no-one wants them to be in.
a very minor effect imho. china doesn't want to control taiwan due to any economic reasons. It's ideological.
China doesn't want the model of a free, democratic society of chinese people to exist, because it proves that the CCP's authoritarianism isn't the only "good" model.
Look at how hong kong was cracked down; china took the opportunity to do it, when the economic bounties from hong kong was being usurped by shenzen (and to a degree, shanghai).
With Occam's razor, the simple answer is really that they consider it part of China for historical and cultural reasons. Taiwan did the same for many years.
So was everything with Taiwan hunky dory when they were a murderous military dictatorship for all those decades[1]?
I thought the under-mentioned beef China had with Taiwan was the fact that the ROC took (and retains to this day) all the priceless cultural artifacts. The CCP would like those back in order to tie themselves to China's history.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)
Can I ask what led to you generating this idea?
As someone in Taiwan it really stood out to me as an odd take.
First, considering Taiwan to be a democratic society of "Chinese" people is odd. The vast majority of Taiwanese wouldn't use the English word "Chinese" to define themselves. There's interesting wordplay happening in Mandarin for a lot of words that the CPC now translates to "Chinese," such as 漢人 華人 vaguely for "ethnicity" and 中文 or 漢語 for language. There's a long conversation to be had there about the CPC engaging in cultural imperialism and Han supremacism as an alternative means of imperializing Taiwan and elsewhere, but I want to stay focused on your message.
Second, the CPC of course doesn't think their model is authoritarian or bad, so what do they have to fear from Taiwan? Propagandic messaging regarding Taiwan is, depending on your level of engagement with "Communism with Chinese Characteristics," either "Taiwan separatist and bad enemy" (low engagement) or "Chinese people on the Taiwan island are enslaved by capitalist overlords and being used as western pawns" (high engagement).
I really doubt that the CPC feels "challenged" by Taiwan, their language never speaks to it.
That's absolutely not true if only for the existence of TSMC.
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
https://9to5mac.com/2024/05/21/chinese-invasion-of-taiwan-ts...
But it's not just the facility that's important, it's the people. It's not like you can walk in and press a button and start making chips (not to mention the whole supply chain for the materials necessary for manufacturing). It's not a turkey operator...
If China somehow captured the facility without severe damage, do you really believe those engineers are just going to do the work? Or rather, do it to their best abilities? Typically people are not very happy when their country has been annexed. It's very easy to slow down production, to introduce error, and it doesn't take very many people resisting to shut down the whole operation, especially if many people are willing to at least "look the other way". All the while the US and others will happily the providing support and be trying to extract those engineers and they're families. (And other countries aren't going to be providing materials so China needs to jump an even bigger gap)
Taiwan knows their silicon shield. It exists by design. And it's resistant to more than an invasion. The chance of a China invasion leading to Chinese chip dominance within a decade after the invasion is near 0. It would only weaken the works supply, so it's just China shooting itself in the foot (maybe both and maybe an arm too). It'd be insane to hurt yourself more in an effort to hurt your enemy even a decent amount. Though it's still not out of the question.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/technology/tsmc-shares-fall-more-tha...
Part 1: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/07/31/exp-731-taiwan-... Part 2: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/07/31/exp-gps-0731-ma...
Are there any "exports" to ban after the fall?
The TSMC production was interrupted by a metro passing by few kilometers away. How can it sustain in a war?
That's a great observation. Except in this case this back-channel is kind of glaringly public and possibly illegal?
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If it looked like Taiwan was actually going to fall, the first thing to be destroyed would be the fabs. There’s almost 0 chance China gets anything usable. If they thought they could, they would’ve invaded during Trump’s term.
Do normal people really view china as an adversary? I see this constantly being pushed by politicians and pundits but, unlike other countries in my lifetime, I don't really see that much animosity from normal folk. Expats who resent the PRC? Absolutely. Racism? Definitely. But there's not much appetite for the demonization of our largest trade partner, nor do I think people buy that we would ever want actual conflict with them—kinetic or economic (sans them doing something comically evil, of course). Genocide aside (for which there is at best sparse evidence available to westerners) most of the ways that they're supposedly our adversaries just seem like what we were brought up to see as "competition".
Both of the last two administrations were driving pretty hard to distance from PRC. Given that, animosity from normal folk or lack thereof seems kind of vague/irrelevant?
There are different kinds of adversary. A traditional tactic in politics is to find someone to blame. Trump blames immigrants, Muslims and China. He translated this into economic action by putting tarrifs on Chinese goods. (Tarrifs are a terrible idea, but one of the few things the president can do unilaterally.)
Thanks to his years of anti-chinese rhetoric, I think there's a substantial number of people who gave drunk that kool-aid and see China as adversarial.
Geopolitically, China is investing heavily in influence. There are lots of programs in other countries (especially Africa and Asia) where they are fostering trade and building infrastructure. This comes largely at the expense of US influence.
Militarily they are growing, and are one of the few countries which could inflict serious losses on American forces. They wouldn't win (yet) but the American public has less appetite for high losses than the Chinese do.
None of which stops them being huge trading partners of course. But the pendulum is swinging, and that distresses a significant number of US folk.
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
After Biden's responses to both Russian and Iranian aggression, do you think that China has any concerns anymore?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=aWFefjhPtQk
By not responding, Biden has undermined decades of US deterrence value.
This idea that the US is protecting Taiwan for its semiconductor prowess (aka the "silicon shield") is a very confusing idea to me as it ignores the period from the 40's to the 90's when Taiwan had no semiconductor manufacturing that wasn't being done as well or better elsewhere, yet the US was a ardent supporter, to the point of almost entirely shunning the People's Republic of China over it.
It's a smart sounding idea (especially if you don't know your 20th century Chinese history) but the facts just don't back it up.
Funny I was just literally thinking about this a few minutes before I opened this thread.
I think the TSMC restrictions on China is really bad for Taiwan in the next few years. First, it’s a huge revenue loss for Taiwan. Second, it creates a scenario in which China would take military action on Taiwan if they fall behind too far in AI due to the lack of the most advanced chips.
If I’m a Taiwan citizen, I would clamor for the government to negotiate with the US and Chinese government to allow Chinese companies to use TSMC fabs. It’s one sure way to delay military action.
TSMC sells more than it is capable of producing. This will likely continue to be a limiter for the foreseeable future. No revenue is being lost as a result of limiting export to China.
>Second, it creates a scenario in which China would take military action on Taiwan if they fall behind too far in AI due to the lack of the most advanced chips.
China's interest in Taiwan existed long before TSMC, it is ideological, not economical.
>If I’m a Taiwan citizen, I would clamor for the government to negotiate with the US and Chinese government to allow Chinese companies to use TSMC fabs. It’s one sure way to delay military action.
I am a Taiwan citizen and the majority of us don't want this, evident by the results of our recent election. That said, see prior point.
and whose capacity will be sacrificed to fulfill this lost revenue potential?
What? Who goes to war for some chips that can be smuggled easily xd
Neither party wants to look “bad for the economy”, even if the people harmed isn’t of significant size.
The presidential election ends in December and all your local ones won't be certified today and in the event of a run-off or re-count voting also won't end today.
You mean like the horrific jobs numbers that came out that nobody is covering either? Like bad like that??
Why did nobody talk about the floods in Nepal or mass suicides in Sudan? Clearly we should all be talking about jobs and the US economy!
[0] https://news.google.com/search?q=job%20numbers&hl=en-US&gl=U...
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If you port CUDA over and want high performance, you must build very similar GPUs. And can you beat NVIDIA on building their own GPU architecture without much space for innovation?
And yes, this does mean that NVIDIA themselves is also facing increasingly absurd constraints and after a few generations CUDA as a programming model may not be sustainable any more.
I think it is going to be difficult, especially for Nvidia GPUs
The law is pretty clear, just throw them in prison [1].
[1]: https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/enforcement/oee/penalties
There is also a massive difference between making them uneconomically and making them economically at scale.
Laws are just market forces at work.
They don't need to track down every unit, but 20% of revenue ending up at a Singapore address might warrant some understanding of the end destination?
Unless Nvidia would be restricted from selling to anyone that is not under the same restrictions than they are, I'd say that is not just a claim but a thruth.
Btw. Don't these trade restrictions not just strengthen BRICS and accelerate their internal market development?