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Everything belongs to the workers (thelemmy.club)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/socialism@lemmy.ml
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[–] [S] 2 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Right, and on top of it Huawei is coming up with new ways to arrange transistors with stuff like Tau folding architecture, which combined wtih EUV might actually allow Chinese chip makers to push far ahead of traditional chip designs.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    The future of Chinese chip manufacturing is definitely bright it's simply not here quite yet until the new machine succeeds in passing the final and most important hurdle of taping out a chip of acceptable quality.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 3 months ago* (2 children)

    It seems like Tau architecture might close the performance gap even without EUV though. Similarly Huawei managed to get clever with optical connections in their Ascend clusters to actually outperform NVIDIA for AI training. https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3315068/how-huaweis-ascend-ai-chips-outperform-nvidia-processors-running-deepseeks-r1-model

    So, the gap really isn't that big in practice. Also worth noting that software side plays just as much role here as well. Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS, and even Linux all have a lot of legacy decisions baked into them for backwards compatibility needed to support existing software. Huawei building a fresh stack on top of HarmonyOS allows them to make a much leaner stack that's not saddled with all the prior baggage. And that can make overall user experience a lot better even on slower hardware. Modern software is incredibly bloated, and addressing the bloat is a low hanging fruit that can be plucked right now without the need for EUV machines. The benefits will stack with faster chips as well just the same way Tau will stack with EUV.

    In a way, decoupling from Western tech stack could actually provide a lot of benefits because it opens up the way for doing things differently without having to worry about the way existing legacy stack works.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I am well aware of all of this however as you maybe subconsciously added yourself:

    So, the gap really isn’t that big in practice.

    I agree the gap currently is the smallest it has ever been, there is however still a gap. I strongly believe from everything I know from my time in the industry that once Chinese EUV achieves a tape out the gap will not simply be closed but thanks to the build-up in novel workarounds that were required in the interim that can then be applied on top of the smaller dimension transistors we will be propelled to a substantial lead. However for now even if it is coming to an inevitable end we still trail the most advanced nodes.

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