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Based on the number of Chinese supercomputers in the public top500 list I don't see any effectiveness to it.

https://www.top500.org/lists/2019/11/

The top Chinese based supercomputer requires twice the power and 6 times the number of cores.

The next requires three times the power and 3 times the cores to produce 60% of the number two supercomputer.

Seems like it's a case of "increase operational friction".

Compared to the amount of megawatt-hours being spent right now in China on bitcoin mining and cryptocurrency mining operations, the friction of having a slightly less efficient and more space hungry supercomputer seems slight... Considering the resources of the government entities that own and operate them.

If you look at the core count, you'll see a stark difference between the supercomputers in the West and China.

For the same perfomance, a Western supercomputer probably fills a room, and a Chinese one the whole datacenter.

Add to that, that the physical distance plays a big role in lantencies, and China may be able to do supercomputer, but it is probably very expensive and inefficient for them.

I have never operated or seen a supercomputer, so all of this is speculation on my part.

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