Hacker News Reader

throwaway4goodon A peek at Intel's future foundry tech

Apple - hardly. AMD - no. NVDIA - maybe. Qualcomm - probably.

throwaway4goodon A peek at Intel's future foundry tech

Who will be Intel's customers? Will Intel compete with them?

throwaway4goodon Japan bets $67B to become a global chip powerhouse once again

They sold 30 mio. according to this:

https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_reaches_30m_sales_of_mate_60...

throwaway4goodon Japan bets $67B to become a global chip powerhouse once again

That is just not true. The Huawei Mate 60 is selling about as much as the iPhone in China atm - it really is a breakthrough product.

throwaway4goodon Japan bets $67B to become a global chip powerhouse once again

There was a rumour at one point of a 1 T RMB fund for Chinese semiconductors but I don't think that came to be. However it appears that a number of large Chinese firms are getting unlimited state support for research in highend semiconductor production not relying on a US controlled supply chain.

I recommend this piece for anyone who is interested in the current state of the Chinese semi industry:

New Era for the Chinese Semiconductor Industry: Beijing Responds to Export Controls by Paul Triolo

https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2024/02/a-new-era-for-the...

throwaway4goodon Japan bets $67B to become a global chip powerhouse once again

It is potentially a lot of jobs and economic activity leaving Taiwan for the US, Europe or Japan.

Most of the US subsidies are going to Intel (including for them setting up their foundry services which directly competes with TSMC). However there are some for TSMC for setting up in the US, that is true.

throwaway4goodon Japan bets $67B to become a global chip powerhouse once again

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_silicon

In AI training you typically use the full hardware all the time, unlike general purpose computing, so this is probably a bigger problem.

throwaway4goodon Japan bets $67B to become a global chip powerhouse once again

Taiwan's economy is deeply dependent on TSMC. By preventing TSMC from selling to the mainland while encouraging subsidies for TSMC's competitors in other countries the US is really squeezing Taiwan with unclear long-term consequences.

throwaway4goodon DJI – The ART of obfuscation

It is pretty standard stuff to obfuscate your code when you distribute your app to a phone to protect against decompiling and sometimes just to save space.

throwaway4goodon Jeff Dean: Trends in Machine Learning [video]

I watched some of this after it was promoted to me on YouTube.

It is very much: Look at this other cool blackbox that Google has made - I think it has a helpful personality.

And sure: Applied AI / ML is a part of computer science but I had hoped it would be more of a walk-through of what has happened in terms of advances in theory, algorithms, architecture, training methodology, and perhaps some sort of explanation of why does it work giving this general purpose model a bunch of medical data? (Is it merely an elaborate fuzzy search, how does it extrapolate, is there actually reasoning going on and how does emerge from a neural net etc...)

throwaway4goodon Ask HN: Best Business Card for Geek?

Geeks don’t have business cards.

throwaway4goodon Sora: Creating video from text

What’s the connection between this and high end game engines (like unreal 5). I would expect 3d game engines to be used at least for training data and fine tuning. But perhaps also directly in the generation of the resulting videos?

For example this looks very much like something from a modern 3d engine:

https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/1758192957386342435

throwaway4goodon UK Fell into Recession in 2023

At the moment you have recession in Germany, Japan and the UK. While there is growth in the US, India and China.

Wonder how long this will last …

throwaway4goodon Japan Loses Its Spot as Third-Largest Economy as It Slips into Recession

https://archive.vn/hLqIq

throwaway4goodon YC: Requests for Startups

YC has a solid brand that enables it to get capital and talent from all over the world - venturing into areas that are deeply divisive for a hot dollar may just cut that off.

throwaway4goodon YC: Requests for Startups

New defense technology

Bring manufacturing back to America

New space companies

Careful not shooting yourself in the foot there …

throwaway4goodon Abandoned villages of Hong Kong

New York city vs Hong Kong sar. (Maybe I am exaggerating - difference in density is about factor 2.5)

throwaway4goodon Abandoned villages of Hong Kong

It is not really comparable. This is more like finding abandoned villages in New York city.

throwaway4goodon Beijing, Shenzhen Deserted; China's Great Depression Arrives [video]

This one is from Falun Gong which is in a fascinating category of its own.

throwaway4goodon China consumer prices plunge at fastest rate in 15 years

It is a bit hard to follow why a single digit percent drop in food prices would be a bigger economic problem.

I can follow that falling house prices can create a spiral where people defer purchases - but no one is going to defer buying a fried rice because it will be 5% cheaper next year.

But this - falling prices on daily necessities - sounds like more of a positive.

throwaway4goodon Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

While the media focuses on China, Germany invests much more in the US. And if you summarize the investment in eastern europe, it is probably larger as well.

The current government has famously green policies: Shutting down nuclear plants and perhaps have a willingness to accept heavy industry leaving Germany. It is however a very unpopular government so I don't know if those policies will hold long term.

throwaway4goodon Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

There is plenty of migration from south and Eastern Europe into Germany so demographics is not an issue.

throwaway4goodon Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

I think the problem is that German energy is expensive compared to other countries.

On top of that you have regulation and lack of subsidies making other places more attractive to produce in ie. the US, Eastern Europe or China.

throwaway4goodon American VC Firms Investing Billions into PRC Companies Fueling the CCP Military

And this particular thing is silly.

China's investment into the US is much larger than the US's investment into China.

throwaway4goodon Sam Altman Seeks Trillions of Dollars to Reshape Business of Chips and AI

I consider Altman to be a salesperson. Had his orb cryptocurrency project taken off instead of OpenAI then I imagine he would be touring the world with similar silly statements about the orb.

What I find amazing is that this stuff sells even though it is way beyond common sense and I am sure in couple of years will be subject to ridicule.

throwaway4goodon Sam Altman Seeks Trillions of Dollars to Reshape Business of Chips and AI

So maybe amounts loose their meaning when they become really big. And maybe this is a bit of: Hi mom. Will you invest 10 USD in my startup valued at 7 T USD. I am making an electronic god.

But 7 T usd is about 1/3 of the US GDP. That is another way of saying the value of 100 million Americans working for a full year.

It is really ridicolous.

throwaway4goodon TSMC to build second Japan chip factory

Yep.

throwaway4goodon TSMC to build second Japan chip factory

I think the word empire is too loaded to be useful. And mechanisms of conquest and exploitation are different. But the core mechanism is the same.

And I think in two hundred years when history is written by someone who is dispassionate about it, the US empire will be seen a continuation of the UK and Dutch empires that was before it.

throwaway4goodon TSMC to build second Japan chip factory

Sorry - just to be clear - just as "Xi is an evil dictator" is common but not universal point of view in the west; the "US is a declining and aggressive empire" is a common but not universal point of view in the rest of the world.

throwaway4goodon TSMC to build second Japan chip factory

The US empire can fall apart without the US mainland being invaded or even threathened. Just like the UK empire was intact after the second world war but over the next three decades completely fell apart.

Simplified empire is about ever increasing conquest and exploitation. At one point the conquests and military upkeep becomes more expensive than the spoils and the whole process starts going in reverse.

Of course I am not saying that this is what is happening right now; maybe Russia and China are falling apart and we are entering another unipolar moment.