Another view on this topic is https://gwern.net/slowing-moores-law
The few industries that push computing out of need would suffer. Certain kinds of research, 3D modeling.
But most of what we use computers for in offices and our day-to-day should work about as well on slightly beefed up (say, dual or quad CPU) typical early ‘90s gear.
We’re using 30 years of hardware advancements to run JavaScript instead of doing new, helpful stuff. 30 years of hardware development to let businesses save a little on software development while pushing a significant multiple larger than that cost onto users.
Early 90's Intel was the 486 33 Mhz. It barely had enough performance to run the TCP/IP stack at a few hundred KB/sec, using all of the CPU just for that task. I think you forgot how slow it was. Pentium II is where it starts to get reasonably modern in the late 90's. Pentium Pro (1995) was their first with multiprocessor support. It was moving so fast back then that early/mid/late 90's was like comparing decades apart at todays pace of improvement.
Not so far removed from a multi-CPU Pentium at 90 or 100MHz, from the very early Pentium days.
I guess what I had in mind was first-gen Pentiums. They’re solidly in the first half of the ‘90s but “early 90s” does cover a broader period, and yeah, 486 wouldn’t quite cut it. They’re the oldest machines I can recall multitasking very comfortably on… given the right software.
The nvidia dgx b200 is already selling for half a million. The nearest non tsmc produced competitor doesn’t come close. Imagine no more supply!
If Taiwan ceased to exist, that would put us a decade back.
The gap isn't a decade, more like 12-18 months.
Also, TSMC has 5nm production in the US. There are actual people with know how of this process in the US.
Other companies are using the same equipment (Samsung and Intel) but TSMC has deeper expertise and got more out of the same equipment so far.
TSMC is running a successful business but they're not the only customers of ASML.
