cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/41305880
But they are buying mature-node equipment, says the article. That doesn’t mean shit other then more cloning and counterfeiting.
China started their high-speed rail network by buying German trains, today their trains are faster than Germany’s and their rail network is more extensive and cheaper.
They’re investing in education, every step of the supply chain, and their chip companies, and bringing in foreign experts and equipment to fill in any gaps. That’s how you get an advanced semiconductor industry.
Trains are one thing, modern chip fab is a completely different. Buying older equipment is not going to get them anywhere but into the production of chips that have been on the market for 10 years already.
This is one industry where each generation has hard limits for manufacturing.
TSMC didn’t start by building current nodes, they started out 10 years behind and caught up, and eventually surpassed over decades.
If it’s as simple as high-speed rail, the US can and will do it by themselves.
It’s been decades, if the US was capable of building a high speed rail network, they would have done it. We tried and failed. There’s 3 HSR lines, one of which doesn’t even average 60 miles an hour, but theoretically could do 180 if it wasn’t for the highways and NIMBYs.
Edit: There is 1 HSR line, the one in California is still being planned, and the brightline isn’t HSR.
China has no chance of winning against the US by this way
Every year they close the gap by spending hundreds of billions on schools and infrastructure, while we spend hundreds of billions on prisons and bombs.
Great example of another tech that is slowly bankrupting China because of it‘s overly excessive but poor implementation. One trillion dollars of debt and rising for a network that is barely used in most parts.
Did you just make that up? According to wikipedia (it cites a chinese-language source I can’t read), average occupancy was increasing until 2016, where the statistics end.
But we can infer later occupancy from other statistics:
Passenger trips per year increase every year, with a drop in 2020, but it went back up to 3.68 billion in 2023, 1.6x what it was in 2019 and 3x what it was when occupancy had increased to 72%
There’s issues, such as that it tends not to run through city centers, but lack of occupancy doesn’t seem like one. In any case, cheap intercity transit is a public good that benefits the whole country. Being able to travel 800 miles in 4 hours for 40 bucks is incredibly convenient.
What next, are you going to claim China is full of ghost cities because building enough housing that everyone can afford it is bad actually?
Or that there’s a huge amount of legit demand for mature node chips and it makes sense to own the supply for it.
The 5000 microcontrollers you inyeract with each day, by and large, do not need 5nm processes.
We saw a few years ago how relatively cheap, commodity-grade, low-complexity chips suddenly become vital when you can’t get them and they have unfinished cars piling up at the assembly plant.
That’s great and all, but you missed the theme of this thread.
China has been the king of bulk products for years. Saying that recent investments will alter world politics in 25 years is a bit strange. Saturating markets is what China does best.
Competition is going to make things cheaper and the global markets has significant effect in world politics. Why do you think US defends Taiwan so much? because of the kindness in their hearts? Get real.
This has been proven time and again throughout history. It’s probably a bit strange because of your prejudice.
The rest of us can’t wait for competition to make it affordable at large and not being bound by monopolies. Everyone gets to choose where to buy the chips from. If that doesn’t alter world politics you’re too out of touch from reality.
Everyone wins except people like you. I guess.
