from the someone-has-a-chip-on-their-shoulder dept.
TSMC Reportedly Halts Shipments to China's GPU Specialist, Biren:
Bloomberg reports that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has suspended shipments of products it makes for China-based Biren, which designs processors aimed at artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) applications. TSMC's lawyers reportedly told the top contract chipmaker to suspend shipments while they are assessing the new limitations.
The U.S. has imposed pretty strict curbs and sanctions of China's supercomputer and AI industries. Specifically, new chips cannot enable machines with the performance of over 100 FP64 PetaFLOPS, or over 200 FP32 PetaFLOPS within 41,600 cubic feet (1178 cubic meters). Furthermore, the machine cannot have a throughput of more than 600 GB/s.
[...] Based on performance numbers published by Biren, its compute GPUs can barely compete with Nvidia's in HPC applications that require 64-bit precision for floating-point operations per second (FLOPS). What is more important is that Biren's software for AI and HPC is reportedly years and generations behind that of Nvidia. So whether or not Biren is a competitor to Nvidia as of today, restrictions or not, is still unclear.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Wednesday October 26 2022, @09:44AM (9 children)
Threaten me and I stop delivering the shit you need. Kinda makes sense, I'd say, doesn't it?
Cut them off and bleed them dry. It's time we get production back from shores that are hostile towards us.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday October 26 2022, @01:51PM (2 children)
It's literally the only play that Taiwan has vs China. Considering that China doesn't even recognize they are their own country. Where would the international community stand, if China decided that Taiwan was theirs like always and moved in force on Taiwan? I'm guessing things would play out a very similar to Russia vs Ukraine. Except, perhaps with China steamrolling even heavier than Russia? Kinda unsure on that one.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Wednesday October 26 2022, @10:59PM
Comparing to Ukraine is misleading. Nobody cares that much about Ukraine as an economy. Meantime just one Chinese or Russian rocket to Taiwan will stop 80% of chip's production for foreseeable future.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday October 28 2022, @10:27PM
Forgot to mention re:
Nobody recognizes Taiwan as it's own country. The reason is whoever does loses any relationships with China.
Well, some 13 banana republics do including - I was surprised as I did not know it - Vatican. I guess Holy Father still wants to bring them yellow devils to God.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RamiK on Wednesday October 26 2022, @05:49PM (2 children)
Well, that depends whether stopping the deliveries in question strikes the balance between making China think twice and not making China so pissed off that they'll consider invading... I guess we'll know in the coming months.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday October 26 2022, @11:04PM (1 child)
The leader said that it will take 5 years to make China's military the strongest in the world. Just saying...
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday October 28 2022, @06:37AM
Old joke: What's the difference between capitalist and communist faery tales?
Capitalist ones start with "Once upon a time, there was..."
Communist ones with "In just 5 years, we will have..."
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday October 26 2022, @10:54PM (2 children)
Separately, TSMC founder told Pelosi that production of chips in the US is doomed.
It's on MarketWatch and FT - both paywalled.
The reason given - no chips manufacturing on the US territory makes Americans more likely to defend Taiwan.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday October 27 2022, @01:30PM (1 child)
I mean, it could just be that Taiwan is doomed to become part of China and the USA will have chip manufacturing in US territory. TSMC isn't the only chip fab in existence. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/new-us-fabs-everything-we-know [tomshardware.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday October 28 2022, @10:16PM
Perhaps he meant something else and I hope he did.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.