I'm surprised it took our government this long to realize how big of a vulnerability it is to not be able to make our own chips.
this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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while I would love to believe that this is the rationale behind it, I am pretty sure the actual reason is the hype of LLM fuckheads that pretend they are working on AI.
That is an incredibly cold take.
It's absolutely a strategic move. China is constantly threatening to invade Taiwan, and you think it's because LLMs became popular that we've begun to domesticate chip fabrication? No, it is 100% more involved with the military-industrial complex and the necessity for locking down advanced technology that can otherwise be used against you.
TSMC only has about two weeks of supplies to function before all of their components are fried. This is a strategic decision by the United States to avoid seizure of advanced chipmaking equipment in the event of a full-scale invasion. In fact, the States has openly said that one of the first moves they would make in a land invasion scenario of Taiwan is to completely destroy all chipmaking capabilities so that nothing can fall into the hands of the enemy.
Now forgive me for being a bit hyperbolic, but we're staring down the barrel of WW3 right now, and if you think this decision was made to further LLMs, I got news for you. The world is much more fucked, my friend, and large language models are only contributing to making the planet hotter.
I suspect "AI" processing requirements play a role, but yeah my first thought about this is "shit, the US gov expects the CCP to actually invade Taiwan"
I hope you're wrong, but I fear you might be right
I also hope I am wrong - then again, if accomplishing independence from chips manufactured abroad is a side-effect, that's at least one plus.
That's something that the Biden administration has done correctly. Semiconductors are only going to become more and more valuable especially with the oncoming robotics wave. The investment will pay off massively, and it'll overall relieve tensions between the US and China with the US no longer relying so heavily on Taiwan. Both the US and China have less reason to engage in conflict if the US produces their own chips.
They milked labor from poorer countries as much as they could but now that China actually developed into viable competition, the US is rushing to move it domestically. Now when they say "crushing expectations", in what capacity? Money spent?
And this try won't work either.