>Any bets on how long until Chinese chips are the cutting edge on the planet?

Right now SMIC can produce 5 nm and 7 nm chips. That means about 5 years difference. I guess they can catch up in a decade if they invest enough resources, and will.

Having a domestic chip industry will be a huge win for China. Not only the chips will be much cheaper for them but they can export a ton while undercutting the competition. They will try to eat TSM, Samsung, Intel, AMD pies.

One thing I'm not clear about is whether this could be made up for by just making more. If the US is not exporting to China, that probably means they have a surplus of components for the rest of the world. So it's quite possible prices will go down enough that it's worth it for China to just keep all chips they produce, for "national security".

Is having one really fast and big chip that much better than having 10x 5 year old chips? (I have no idea how many chips they can produce, just wondering if being second really is that bad.)

I'd bet even faster.

The West pretends that Taiwan is another country with another totally alien set of people who hate the mainland. However, that is not really the case. I imagine it's fairly easy to poach TSMC personnel, who well now realize that Taiwanese semi-conductor industry is going to be ruined by American meddling in the coming decade (much like they did of Japan's).

> I imagine it's fairly easy to poach TSMC personnel

They already did that. They offered some TSMC engineers much better payment and they built 5nm and 7nm fab processes for SMIC using DUV instead of EUV. :)

To add insult to the injury, Huawei released their Kirin 9000s CPU during US secretary of commerce visit in China.

I think TW banned semi workers from working in PRC for triple pay, after banning TW recruiters from helping PRC poach TW workers didn't work. Meanwhile, TW semi workers still underpaid and overworked.

this is true, there is an 'export restriction' for TW workers going to the mainland in certain industries, especially SC

Where can I buy a 7nm device made by SMIC? (let alone 5nm)

Considering everyone else is trying to catch up to nvidia it would be hard, but these players don't play by any rules..

we all play by the rules of physics and nowhere is that more evident than in leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing ;-)

I think the father implied that "they don't play by the rules" = they will try to hack/steal secrets instead of completing their own race to the betterment of technology.

There was a hack on 23andme.. if I was China/Russia, and it would be me hacking 23andme then I would have a wealth of information about children out of wedlock (blackmail), sick people (bribing), etc.

> I would have a wealth of information about children out of wedlock (blackmail)

And then there's a moment of cultural confusion as the younger generation of parents looks at the person attempting blackmail and says "Correct, we couldn't afford the wedding. Were you offering to pay for one?"

>I think the father implied that "they don't play by the rules" = they will try to hack/steal secrets instead of completing their own race to the betterment of technology.

And US never stole secrets?

IMO, the really interesting thing are what becomes of the Taiwanese industry as the political situation (they have an election next year) develops. TSMC has applied for-and has received-an exemption from US prohibitions, as has Samsung up in South Korea. That speaks volumes.