THREAD: The US government's new export controls are wreaking havoc on China's chip industry.
New rules around "US persons" are driving an "industry-wide decapitation."
The following is the translation of a thread posted earlier this week by @lidangzzz.
"Lots of people don’t know what happened yesterday.
To put it simply, Biden has forced all Americans working in China to pick between quitting their jobs and losing American citizenship.
Every American executive and engineer working in China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry resigned yesterday, paralyzing Chinese manufacturing overnight.
One round of sanctions from Biden did more damage than all four years of performative sanctioning under Trump.
Although American semiconductor exporters had to apply for licenses during the Trump years, licenses were approved within a month.
With the new Biden sanctions, all American suppliers of IP blocks, components, and services departed overnight —— thus cutting off all service [to China].
Long story short, every advanced node semiconductor company is currently facing comprehensive supply cut-off, resignations from all American staff, and immediate operations paralysis.
This is what annihilation looks like: China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry was reduced to zero overnight. Complete collapse. No chance of survival.
[Translation of the DMs in a screenshot:
Person A: Everyone from Lam Research at Yangtze Memory left today, and on the 12th the AMAT folks will leave as well
Person B: Yes. Not just Yangtze, but also HLMC, ICRD’s Jiading fab, Hefei’s CXMT DRAM fab
All leaving
Even Geehy in Hangzhou is pausing operations]
Q: Why hasn’t Chinese media reported on this?
A: I don’t know.
The only possible explanation is that this major story, and its future ramifications, will bring severe damage to the supposedly “continuously flourishing” semiconductor industry and Chinese national security as a whole.
The level of embarrassment is on par with Pelosi’s Taiwan visit.
Many people don’t understand why this is annihilation.
ASML has stopped providing services and support to mainland China.
Lessons from Okimoto's 1989 classic "Between MITI and the Market: Japanese Industrial Policy for High Technology". A thread!
To start: MITI almost killed Sony in the cradle by not letting them purchase foreign semiconductor tech for $25k.
MITI's highest profile success, the VLSI project, probably would've happened anyways without government intervention.
Plus, VLSI's executive director said that the only reason he was able to get anything done was sake parties to get researchers to be friends across companies.
people give government officials far more credit than they deserve for designing it all
OpenAI's newly released Code Interpreter changes everything.
Every business on the planet now has access to an on-demand team of McKinsey consultants for $20/month.
To see why, here's what I was able to do in 10 minutes with my own company's data:
I run a newsletter called ChinaTalk () which covers US-China and technology policy.
After uploading the dataset of my 25k readers, it made a plan to help sell ad space. While ChatGPT could do something like this, what came next amazed me... https://t.co/8dmE8L4QaUchinatalk.media
On its own, it started writing python code to plot growth.
It was even smart enough to know it had to convert strings to numbers without me telling having to tell it to.
Why would Xi give Putin weapons?
If he does, will a US-China Cold War start for real?
THREAD on what might be the scariest geopolitical development in years
First, some context: recently reports emerged across credible western media that the US had intel that Xi was seriously contemplating sending lethal military aid to Russia.
That would mark a dangerous change from China’s behavior: as early as March 2022, Biden warned Xi of “consequences” should China provide “material support” to Russia — and so far China has mostly refrained.
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What does China's most important tech official have to say about ChatGPT?
A THREAD on China's AI blueprint featuring a revealing soccer analogy...
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Wang Zhigang, the head of China's Ministry of Science and Technology, did a ministers' press conference on March 5 during the Two Sessions ...
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... and specifically as part of the National People's Congress.
The NPC is China's "rubber-stamp" parliament. It might not be known for robust debate, but it is an essential platform for bureaucracy and power to meet.
Senior positions, incl. PRC president, will be filled.
COMPUTE THREAD — how will the geopolitics of AI compute impact the future of US-China relations?
In 2020, Ben Buchanan (now on the NSC) popularized the “AI triad”--the three inputs that drive national AI power. 1. data 2. algorithms, 3. computing power — or simply “compute.”
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First, compute: the amount of compute which modern machine-learning systems are demanding has been doubling every 6 months.
High end compute will be the key strategic resource for firms and nations hoping to ride the AI wave. arxiv.org/abs/2202.05924
THREAD: One year after Russia invaded Ukraine, what do Chinese elites think of the war?
Hint: Influential scholars and even some ultranationals want Xi to stop embracing Putin.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi dropped his peace plan on Feb 24, but Hu Wei, a State Council advisor, wasn't impressed.
He writes, "... the paper contains no specific implementation plan or any operational measures. ... Even Russia says the document does not reflect its positions."
Hu, a pro-Ukraine voice in elite Chinese politics, believes China should be on the side of justice and the country who is winning on the battlefield