That's so funny. ASML holds the market for a reason, this is not so simple. You could probably do it on a Friday night but the Chinese may take a bit longer than that.
This is essentially a Manhattan project like initiative. It doesn’t have to happen overnight. China now has some of the best universities doing research in optics.
If it happens in 5 years what will ASML do then ? The west’s monopoly on this sector would be finished.
At this point China has no choice but to develop the tech or be forced to not have processors. Time will tell.
Given that hard power is being used to punish China they will use every means at their disposal from massive investments and manpower to poaching talents and even espionage.
If North Korea can make nukes then this shouldn’t be impossible for a power like China.
I have a sneaking suspicion that they are much further ahead than they are revealing in public which explains their confidence and refusal to back down. Time will tell.
>Given that hard power is being used to punish China they will use every means at their disposal from massive investments and manpower to poaching talents and even espionage.
Espionage is usually the first thing, not something of last resort. Pretty much all major players are doing it all the time. Doesn't even take much incentive.
The west isn't quite as free with giving the stolen information to the private sector (though the US really likes giving their domestic companies bidding advantages) - but since we're talking about China here, there's pretty much a guarantee of anything and everything finding a way to their private sector.
The Soviet Union didn't collapse because a lack of capability. They collapsed because it was too expensive to forge their own way, when most of the world could pool capital via free trade.
China is big. But the rest of the world is bigger. And despotic regimes inclined to trade with an embargoed state aren't typically the most flush economic partners.
Don't think its a good idea to act like China is a isolated nation like the soviet union.
Lets see a guaranteed market is China + Russia + Iran + ASEAN seems like a good block amounting to almost 2.3 billion people.
China already has quiet a strong foothold in Africa with tech brands giving a potential 1 billion future customers.
If one thing the EU should worry about not turning into a Hotel Europe where people only go to visit instead of producing stuff.
It depends on what they need to fund. I don’t see why an investment of say 200 billion dollars over 5-7 years can’t bring them to the forefront in chip making. They have forex reserves in the trillions.
SMIC which is their Intel raised 7 billion dollars last week from investors inside China. That’s on top of what the government is putting in. People underestimate the resources at chinas disposal.
China's economy looks very different if the world starts treating them differently. All while they're attempting to transition their economy from lowest-cost manufacturer to value-add.
It's benefited from 20 years of optimistic free market access.
No doubt they'll find trading partners, but it's not going to look anything like the open doors they've been used to. And they're going to start finding that their domestic and international choices now have trade consequences, rather than the look-the-other-way, laissez-faire approach the world has taken thus far.
Exports are 17 % of China’s GDP. High but not as high as say Germany. It doesn’t seem like a fall in exports would be unmanageable. Not to make a virtue out of a harsh reality but chinas export heavy model wasn’t sustainable anyway.
China has been able to develop advanced stealth technology, quantum computing, supersonic combustion engine, and more, after the state decided that they were priorities that had to be developed.
I don't see why EUV would be impossible for them to replicate. The list of times when we (and I too) thought that they could not catch up in a certain technology is long, and I won't make that bet anymore.
The resources of the Chinese state are incredibly vast. If they decide that they absolutely must get something done, that will most likely happen. It would be a Manhattan Project level initiative, but even more important.
Yea, it will get done, but it will take a bunch of years.
One of the best things I feel like I've learned in systems eng is that this stuff is just too disorganized and difficult. It's not enough to steal all of the plans - you're not going to make sense of them and they don't have the rejiggered edition Jimmy's WAR from last Tuesday.
IP theft occurs because employees are owned for years at a time and are able to slowly push useful tidbits across the proprietary barrier.
I agree, it will take bunch of years, but Chinese EUV research has already been underway for a while and they've been hiring like crazy in optics for years. I'm fairly confident that they will have it functional in the next 7 years.
Half the stuff you just mentioned China has not actually developed. Fancy demonstrations are not actually products. I don’t get why so many people on hacker news are falling for obvious propaganda.
There are (probably) various degree of success.
Let's say that some X.Inc in China managed to manufacture EUV machines in 5 years. However, it's 3 time more expensive and only quarter of lifespan compared to ASML.
That's still a win since PRC gov can easily subsidize both fabricators to buy them and X. Inc to do more research. Of course it won't be competitive, but that's another goal.
the question is - how much of that "reason" is protectionism (patents, etc)?
if you no longer care about pissing off the US and EU (because they're up in your business anyway) then maybe it doesn't matter so much if you violate those patents.
Same thing as with Taiwan's "special trade status", Trump thinks that revoking their status will get China to leave them alone, because he has a very simplistic bullying-oriented view of international politics, but it's widely predicted to have the exact opposite effect as intended and lock in PRC control. Or trying to bully Iran with further sanctions even though they're already in compliance with treaties.
The approach is "carrot and stick", if you only use the stick then you provide no incentive for future compliance, people realize it's more effective to just start preparing for the inevitable future beatings and set yourself up to mitigate as much of the pain as possible.
This often leads to countries building up their own domestic industry to make themselves impervious to sanctions - that's how it's worked with Iran, after 50 years of sanctions they are more independent and less susceptible to the effects of sanctions than ever. That's how it's working with China, this is far from the first thing we've tried to choke off, there was the spat with memory too and they just ended up building their own plants.
And it often leads to further "escalation" and violation of norms. If you're going to get shit on anyway, why would they respect ASML's intellectual property?
Patents have never stopped China from obtaining something if they felt it was strategic. The fact that they haven't done it yet is proof positive - to me - that it isn't all that easy. Note that this is not for lack of trying.
> Same thing as with Taiwan's "special trade status", Trump thinks that revoking their status will get China to leave them alone, because he has a very simplistic bullying-oriented view of international politics, but it's widely predicted to have the exact opposite effect as intended and lock in PRC control.
Have I missed major developments, or have you confused Hong Kong and Taiwan?
The US under Trump is just far too unpredictable and unreliable. China appears more stable and predictable. Case in point: even post pandemic, when the US is withdrawing from the world, China doubled down on its commitment to Pakistan and initiated massive billion dollar projects last week.
If I were Pakistan and in desperate need of financial assistance, I would look to China instead of USA, simply because of the former's consistency (despite all the strings attached to these investments).
Predictability is highly underrated, in international politics and elsewhere.
I'm not defending Chinese actions in Pakistan (I am Indian; I have no reasons to). I'm just pointing out that Chinese actions have been consistent and hence, more reliable.
