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The suggestion that they'd be banning the export of Intel processors is dumb.
The "Hilarious" is just icing. To me the whole comment smacks of racism. What would you call it? I knew I'd get down-voted for saying it, and I've held my tongue in the past. But it's nearly every article about China now. These sardonic off-the-cuff remarks. It's so accepted here, and it shouldn't be. So I'm calling it out.
China doesn't export CPU processors, they import from Intel like everyone else. I believe there is a fab in Singapore, but I'm not sure what generation they are at. There is a testing facility in chengdu, at least.
This article suggests that there are numerous Chinese companies trying to make the grade: "Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC), Shanghai Huali Microelectronics (HLMC), Shanghai HuaHong NEC Electronics Company (HHNEC), Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing and Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (ASMC)"
http://qz.com/72542/china-just-surpassed-the-us-in-semicondu...
> "McKinsey’s proprietary research indicates that more than 50 percent of PCs, and between 30 and 40 percent of embedded systems (commonly found in automotive, commercial, consumer, industrial, and medical applications), contain content designed in China,"
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/high_tech_telecoms_internet...
> "Compared to 2008, consumption of semiconductor materials in North America is down $250 million to $4.74 billion, while in China consumption has shot up 42% to $5.07 billion."
But they are still way behind on process. I believe its 35-50 nm, while Intel, the Koreans, and the Taiwanese right now are at 14 nm. If you are building the world's fastest super computer, you are putting Intel or similarly fabbed chips in there...they are not putting their own chips in!
Then there is also the problem of having their own designs to fab. There was a big scandal a few years back where the "native microprocessor" was actually based on an old design that some professor stole from a company in the states!
So if they want a supercomputer right now (or frankly at any point in the coming decade or so), they need to do it with chips fabbed in the west. So restricting "export" of that technology back to the west does seem kinda funny to me. No?
IMO the restriction on exports at this point isn't too important besides notifying everyone else, including you, China can produce chips and can produce supercomputers too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy[*]
That metric is Gross Domestic Product by Purchasing Power Parity, or GDP (PPP). The IMF and CIA Factbook use it as a measure. Economies can be measured in many ways. By GDP alone, which I agree is the more common measure, China is not the largest -- though all indicators point that it soon will be by this measure also.
http://www.euronews.com/2014/12/09/the-american-century-come...
* Wikipedia data drawn from IMF.
What is the largest?
The EU if you count it as a country, otherwise the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28no...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP...
Why is this a dumb suggestion? The article does not specify, nor does the PR release by china.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/sci/2015-08/01/c_134469932...
Right behind the European Union.
