this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 152 points 7 months ago (17 children)

I mean, we do the same thing, for the same reasons, with our government and defense procurement orders these days. This isn’t that weird. It’s only weird in that they’re clearly cutting themselves off from the best high-volume x86 CPU manufacturers that currently exist, but aside from that, the geopolitical and strategic calculus adds up.

[–] SharkAttak@kbin.social 57 points 7 months ago (10 children)

Gee, now it makes me think there's an ulterior motive to conquering Taiwan..

[–] unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org 56 points 7 months ago (6 children)

Yes, all of the most advanced chip making factories are in Taiwan. It's the biggest reason that the US passed the CHIPS act and also why there is so much geopolitical tension around Taiwan.

Why did you think there was so much focus on Taiwan? Boba is great and all, but surely it doesn't merit the protection of the US Navy. 😁

[–] RedWeasel@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

TSMC is like the world’s biggest shield right now.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 12 points 7 months ago

It's probably the modern reason, but before semiconductors there was already a lot of nationalistic tension around Taiwan.

[–] QuantumBamboo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 7 months ago

I would love to have been a fly on the wall when the person who came up with the name Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors revealed their idea. I've got an image of someone sitting on their hands, eyes wide and shaking slightly as their desire to share it tries to burst out of them!

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[–] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 13 points 7 months ago

The entire reason they haven't tried yet is because they know they can't do it without TSMC being scuttled.

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[–] lanolinoil@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago

Hey China I made you this sweet horse statue in the form of an x86 processor -- You should put it in the town square to show it off and then all go to sleep....

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[–] rimu@piefed.social 78 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

This might just be for government computers, not the entire country - see https://www.ft.com/content/7bf0f79b-dea7-49fa-8253-f678d5acd64a

Still, the overall direction and intent is clear.

[–] turkishdelight@lemmy.ml 4 points 7 months ago

understandible given how the Americans are treating Huawei.

[–] robber@lemmy.ml 46 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Only Chinese code is present, namely [lists three linux distros]

Linus Torvalds: *clears throat*

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

China Huawei'ing Linux

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 41 points 7 months ago (1 children)

China bans Intel and AMD from government machines, the US blocked Huawei from the entirety of the US.

[–] Buelldozer@lemmy.today 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Unless I’m misreading the article Intel and AMD are banned for EVERYONE not just government.

[–] chM5tZ8zMp@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 7 months ago

That article is poorly written. This one is more informative. Since there's a paywall, I'll quote a few relevant parts:

"China has introduced new guidelines that will mean US microprocessors from Intel and AMD are phased out of government PCs and servers, as Beijing ramps up a campaign to replace foreign technology with homegrown solutions.

The stricter government procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favour of domestic options."

...

"Officials have begun following the new PC, laptop and server guidelines this year, after they were unveiled with little fanfare by the finance ministry and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) on December 26. They order government agencies and party organs above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases. "

[–] RageAgainstTheRich@lemmy.world 34 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I mean, i get it. But i wish the world would just work together on everything and stop with the country bullshit. Imagine the stuff we could make if everyone worked together.

[–] AlpacaChariot@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Brothers, brothers! We should be struggling together!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHHitXxH-us

[–] gbzm@lemmy.world 30 points 7 months ago

Well they probably know what they put in the CPUs they export to the US and Europe, so why would they?

[–] moon@lemmy.cafe 29 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I mean more Arm on Linux sounds dope to me I guess

[–] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I like the power conservation but I hate the "SoC"

[–] SteveTech@programming.dev 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ampere CPUs use normal DIMMs, and don't have integrated storage, like any other CPU. So you can have the best of both worlds (although idk about power conservation, they are efficient though).

[–] QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

SoCs exist primarily for power efficiency. Long external bus lines and their respective controllers are very power hungry.

Also, tightly coupled RAM reduces latency and eases cache size requirements.

This isn’t the case for everybody, but I’d wager the vast majority of people never upgrade their RAM independently of their CPU these days. There was probably a spike once 8GB became generally insufficient a few years ago, but I have a hard time imagining the same thing will happen with 16GB configs until it’s time to hop on the DDR5 train.

[–] the_rogue@sh.itjust.works 24 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Whatever that gets a RISC-V open source chip made i am supporting don't care if its china or russia lets just hope this makes the giants follow along .

[–] SharkAttak@kbin.social 22 points 7 months ago (3 children)

China, Russia, and open source? Hahaha

[–] olympicyes@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Execs from Huawei and Tencent are on the board of directors for the Linux Foundation.

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[–] the_rogue@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yeah i also thought about it but decided to be optimistic for a sec . Atleast i hope they indirectly press others to do so.

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[–] yarr@feddit.nl 17 points 7 months ago

In a bizarre turn of events, it seems the reclusive nation of North Korea has finally succumbed to the intense chip envy brought on by China's recent announcement of its approved CPU list. In an effort to keep pace with neighboring rivals, Kim Jong-un ordered the immediate development of a state-of-the-art microchip. And thus, 'The Juche Chip' was born - named after North Korea's philosophy of self-reliance.

After months of hard work, North Korean engineers presented their masterpiece: a CPU so advanced, it can run MS-DOS smoothly on Windows ME. This revolutionary breakthrough in computing technology also boasts an impressive clock speed that's roughly equivalent to the rate at which time moves inside a Pyongyang prison cell. With the Juche Chip, users will never have to worry about lagging, overheating or any other technical issues because their system will freeze before such problems could even arise.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 17 points 7 months ago (2 children)

What bothers me is the kernel version. Only one OS is on Linux 5 while the rest are on Linux 4‽

[–] Siegfried@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago

A debian based dystopia, I like it

[–] ozymandias117@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Seems like a continuation of the sad state of affairs for ARM chips. Most of the allowed chips are ARM based, and most companies making ARM chips never update their kernels

[–] Clbull@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Databases also make the list, and again nothing from Western devs made the cut. But Alibaba Cloud's PolarDB is mentioned, as is Tencent’s TDSQL and a handful of other made-in-China efforts.

That's a big one.

Unless Chinese firms have been straight-up stealing trade secrets and code from the likes of Oracle and have produced such a blatant knock-off of their software that in any other country, they would have been sued out of existence, I can see a five week transition being messy-as-fuck.

Transitions to new database systems take months or even years to implement, not the 5 weeks mandated by the Chinese Communist Party. This is especially the case when you're dealing with important stakeholder data, huge data volumes and/or statutory requirements like financial reporting.

[–] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

100% someday they will use the approved CPU list to have only those with secure boot/locked bootloader enforcing only their approved operating systems too.

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[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 13 points 7 months ago (2 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:


AMD and Intel are not present on a list of processors approved by China's Information Security Evaluation Center.

The x86 architecture does make the list, but only in chips made by Shanghai Zhaoxin Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd – which is minority-owned by Taiwan's Via Technologies and holds a license to produce x86 processors.

The other approved chip shops make processors powered by Arm cores or, in the case of Loongson Technologies, the RISC-V architecture.

Second, the Financial Times found it over the weekend and reported that publication of the list accelerated efforts in China to replace Western tech and hardware with locally developed kit.

The FT chatted to some IT shops inside China and they confirmed that they're phasing out items like PCs running Windows, because shop-at-home mandates have taken force.

Last week, authorities again called on web platforms to police more vigilantly the use of provocative typos and puns that can be construed as criticism of the Chinese Communist Party.


The original article contains 463 words, the summary contains 161 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 4 points 7 months ago

authorities again called on web platforms to police more vigilantly the use of provocative typos and puns that can be construed as criticism of the Chinese Communist Party.

Criticism? Jail. Puns? Jail. Spelling mistake? Believe it or not, jail. We have the highest literacy in the world. Because of jail.

[–] aniki@lemm.ee 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

Can't even source their own chips. Need to buy from the real China, Taiwan.

China is a fucking joke.

Make RISC-V great again

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[–] neshura@bookwormstory.social 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm all for critiquing China where it makes sense but this just seems like the same national security measures the West has taken in the past (Huawei 5G anyone?)

[–] Pretzilla@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago (4 children)

It's also defacto mandating that their CCP approved Spyware chips are in place

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[–] mightyfoolish@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

None of the CPUs on that list contain Intel Management Engine. What gives China, you don't want a CPU in your CPU?

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Is this really a surprise since we ban them from using our tech. I wouldn't want my tech to hinge on an other country that doesn't want me to have the stronger than average stuff either tbh.

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[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Zilog: my time has come!

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