China encourages local orgs to seek alternatives to US silicon
- Reference: 1733377079
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/12/05/china_stop_buying_us_chips_advice/
- Source link:
"To ensure the safe, stable and sustainable development of my country's internet industry, I call on domestic companies to … seek to expand cooperation with chip companies in other countries and regions, and actively use chips manufactured in China by domestic and foreign companies," reads a Tuesday [1]statement by China's Internet Society.
The nation's Semiconductor Industry Association, Association of Automobile Manufacturers, and Association of Communication Enterprises all published similar opinions on the same day, and coincidentally state-controlled outlet Xinhua was kind enough to [2]summarize them and their message. That message is that China opposes US sanctions, needs reliable suppliers, and ensuring the "security" of local industry means choosing chips made at home by companies that don't have US entanglements.
[3]
The references to "security" in the pieces aren't about infosec – it appears they are referring to reliability of supply chains.
[4]
[5]
If Chinese organizations follow this advice they'll end up with inferior PCs and servers. Lenovo recently [6]created a laptop that uses a made-in-China CPU from local x86 licensee Zhaoxin that struggles to match the performance of five year old AMD and Intel chips. Another Chinese chipmaker, Loongson, is also [7]believed to be about four years behind state-of-the-art desktop CPUs. Loongson's server CPUs are also modest.
Chinese buyers may do better in the cloud, where Alibaba's Yitian 710 server-grade Arm CPU was [8]rated in April as the fastest such processor offered by any hyperscaler.
[9]China’s tech giants deliver chips for Ethernet variant tuned to HPC and AI workloads
[10]Musk and Trump to fall out in 2025, predicts analyst
[11]China launches first next-gen Long March 12 rocket, christens private spaceport
[12]Trump tariffs transform into bigger threats for Mexico, Canada than China
While Chinese silicon may not match that from stateside stalwarts Nvidia, Intel, or AMD, it could eventually become easier to obtain after Beijing banned exports to the US of some rare earths used in the semiconductor manufacturing process. China blocked exports of gallium, germanium, and antimony on grounds they could be used for military purposes – the same pretext the US has used for bans of advanced semiconductors to China.
US-based semiconductor firms have not reacted to the ban and may not need to – chipmakers stockpile critical supplies, and alternative sources exist.
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As we've seen with China and Russia managing to acquire sanctioned tech, some jurisdictions are [14]happy to facilitate gray market trading .
But between the rare earths ban, and the advice to consider not buying US chips, China is clearly fighting back against American policy. These latest developments came the day after the Biden administration [15]extended sanctions to prohibit exports of high-bandwidth memory tech that is necessary for AI systems. ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.isc.org.cn/article/23033267061780480.html
[2] https://english.news.cn/20241204/a6c9aa6b096644278b179537f3be8905/c.html
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z1GH1tJudNbAEDmQc2zVNwAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z1GH1tJudNbAEDmQc2zVNwAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z1GH1tJudNbAEDmQc2zVNwAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/15/lenovo_china_slow_laptop/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/13/loongson_cpu_mini_pc/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/29/arm_cloud_server_database_performance/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/26/global_scheduling_ethernet_china_uec/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/04/musk_trump_china_agenda/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/02/china_long_march_12_launch/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/26/trump_tariffs_mexico_canada/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z1GH1tJudNbAEDmQc2zVNwAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/23/hong_kong_tech_sanctions_evasion/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/03/biden_hbm_china_export_ban/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
What ? Trump backing down ?
When have you ever seen that clown back down from whatever bullshit statement he's ever made ?
He'll "correct" a map with a Sharpie if he has to, but he will never back down.
If he really has to, he'll let an underling do that, then claim he was never aware of it and he's still right.
"If Chinese organizations follow this advice they'll end up with inferior PCs and servers. Lenovo recently created a laptop that uses a made-in-China CPU from local x86 licensee Zhaoxin that struggles to match the performance of five year old AMD and Intel chips. Another Chinese chipmaker, Loongson, is also believed to be about four years behind state-of-the-art desktop CPUs. Loongson's server CPUs are also modest."
The Longsoon CPU is apparently comparable to a 2020 era Core i3, so for 99% of home or work use they sound like they have more than adequate performance. Doubly so if not running Windows 10.
My current work-supplied PC is a 2014 era HP Prodesk tower (4th gen Core i7, 32GB ram and SSD) - I am slowly preparing for this going EOL with the Windows 11 upgrades and moving to a work-supplied Intel NUC8 (8th gen core i3). The NUC's performance may not be quite the same on paper as the older i7 but it feels just as responsive running W10 alongside all the usual Office stuff and the company's proprietary analysis software. Boot Ubuntu on either of these machines and they fly - these Chinese CPU's don't sound like they'd be that bad from a performance perspective. Might not be so keen on them reporting everything back to Uncle Xi and friends, though....
Re: them reporting everything back to Uncle Xi
I'm sure that a properly configured router would solve that problem.
Rare earths ban isn't that big of a deal
China gave us a warning on the rare earths a decade ago and US mines already re-opened as a result. Plus Australia has some as well.
There was a recent discovery in Oklahoma that they're claiming has over 2 billion tons of rare earths, which is over 100x larger than the largest known. Even if they are wildly overestimating it, no doubt the US government will cut a lot of red tape to allow them to begin mining there quickly if China follows through (i.e. it isn't some sort of bargaining chip to get Trump to back down on his 100% tariff threats)