Dell said to be planning purge of Chinese chips from products by 2024 Dell looks set to stop using chips from China in its products by 2024, according to reports. The move appears to be part of a wider effort to shift its supply chains away from the country in response to the ongoing tensions between China and the US. The PC and tech infrastructure maker has told suppliers to significantly …
Anything that isn't a laundrette or takeaway.
Proof - if it were needed - that it has never been about "national security" but of protecting the Western/American hegemony. The mistake the Americans made was pushing it too far - yes - chips for AI etc I would only trust the US (sarcasm intended) to have - but chips for use in EVs etc? really?
This may well be a cynical move by Dell to capture the 'government' business. Most companies of any size in the US have a sales division specifically for the government and its innumerable subsidiaries so its a way of capitalizing on the top down diktat thrown at industry by politicians. It ignores the reality of global trade, though. My favorite brand of computer is Lenovo, for example. They're a Chinese company but they're also a global company and their PC product line is anchored on the business they acquired when the bought the PC business off IBM. (IBM's Thinkpad line of laptops might not have appeared on a gamer's radar or had the design cachet of Apple but for all round solidity and reliability they were hard to beat. Lenovo has continued to produce solid, reasonably priced systems.)
This problem with global corporations is why the goal posts move. Bureaucrats aren't very good at understanding global supply chains or the intricacies of modern designs. To them we're still in a world where possessing the blueprint means you, and only you, have the knowledge to make the product (so if you can either possess or control that blueprint "they" can't get hold of the device etc.). So not surprisingly what are supposed to be watertight sanctions turn out to be anything but.
We should think about this detail. Currently the largest producer of electric vehicles -- and the largest single market for them -- is China. Tesla itself produces about half its vehicles there. I'd venture to suggest that there's a lot more technology in a Tesla than a PC.
"My favorite brand of computer is Lenovo, for example. They're a Chinese company but they're also a global company and their PC product line is anchored on the business they acquired when the bought the PC business off IBM. (IBM's Thinkpad line of laptops might not have appeared on a gamer's radar or had the design cachet of Apple but for all round solidity and reliability they were hard to beat. Lenovo has continued to produce solid, reasonably priced systems.)"
The same Lenovo that, more than once, was caught shit-faced with the hands in the cookie jar by willingly installing malware on their systems?
Also, Thinkpads are vastly overrated, mostly based on a rose-tinted view of supposedly superior built quality that has little roots in reality. Even back then when IBM was making them, they often came with several design flaws (delaminating LCD panels in T2x, board flex in A3x and T4x models, overheating, cracks in magnesium frames in T61 due to poor materials, cracks in plastic pieces and hinges across many models and batteries that are dead in a couple of years).
It didn't get any better when Lenovo took over the brand, and in the last decade, we see a lot better durability and reliability from our HP EliteBooks than our company Thinkpads (and it looks like the next round we'll go fully HP).
I hope this doesn't expand to include pocket-knives, or we will experience the greatest pocket-knife shortage in history, since most of them are made in China these days. The Knife-show channel will go completely out of business. Better start stockpiling now.
Irrespective of the current USA vs China tussle, it seems dumb to have all of your products dependant on one region. Sadly the race to the bottom of globalisation was all about this: the cheapest supply and who cared if it was all under an authoritarian government party when there are shareholder's dividends to be issues?
It wasn't just about finding the cheapest supplier. Shenzhen is literally the only place on Earth where you can get literally anything made in large numbers in record time. There simply is no other place where you find such a large number of suppliers for every component under the sun (and if you need something that doesn't exist yet then they can make it for you).
You simply can't get this anywhere else.
And the reason that place is Shenzhen and not somewhere in the US, Europe or any other Western place is that here in the West, subsequent governments have always hesitated to really invest in long-term manufacturing infrastructure (just look at the debacle that is the current discussion around funding for new chip factories), and businesses these days only plan for near to short terms (2-3 years, maybe 5). China on the other hand is in it for the long run.
This is entirely on the West, and Apple is currently experiencing what it means to have all eggs in one basket.
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