A billion dollars' worth of Nvidia chips fell off a truck and found their way to China, report says An estimated $1 billion worth of smuggled high-end Nvidia AI processors have reportedly found their way onto the Chinese black market, despite the US government's strict restrictions on exports of the tech. The eyebrow-raising figure, which Nvidia has neither confirmed nor refuted, was revealed by the Financial Times, which …
... if any of those China-bound AI chips were "speed-bin specials" or "failed-core falloffs". Less oomph, but way cheaper.
I have an old-yet-works-fine PC with an AMD "Tri-Core" CPU. It was designed as a quad-core, but one of the cores failed in factory testing, so AMD disabled that core and sold the chip for a lower price.
Well yeah. A billion+ person market is obviously mouth-watering from a revenue perspective.
What I find interesting is that he was born in Taiwan. You know, that country that China is gearing up to invade.
Does that make him some sort of a traitor to his birthplace ?
Of course, if China does invade and conquer Taiwan, then he will obviously be hailed as a visionary.
Pfff.
"Jensen Huang, [..] sees China as a significant opportunity" Well yeah. A billion+ person market is obviously mouth-watering from a revenue perspective.
Maybe he should stop seeing opportunities, make some real friends and enjoy himself. Huang's net worth is $148bn. At average S&P returns, if he divides his returns into keeping the $148bn up with inflation, and spends the rest, he'd still be able to spend over $26m every single day for the rest of his life, and still be leaving that $148bn uplifted for inflation to his undeserving sprogs.
Or, he could keep on with his 14 hour days and seven day working weeks, work himself to death developing the "opportunity" of China, and leave the undeserving sprogs $500bn.
At the risk of being even more tedious than usual** Taiwan isn't some kind of remote country but a Chinese island just off the coast. It became the location of the official government of the Republic of China when the Chinese government fled there after the 1949 formation of the PRC. It was recognized by the US (and so, I'd guess, everybody else that matters) as the Republic of China until 1979 when the reality of the PRC was finally acknowledged. Taiwan was left as an independent nation but also like other countries that neighbor communist (or formerly communist) nations it became a base for operations against those countries. Realistically, though, due to strong historical and cultural ties with the rest of China I expect Taiwan to eventually be reabsorbed. I just don't anticipate an 'invasion' because China itself is a very old society so is likely to just wait things out, letting culture and economics lead the way.
(**Its just so difficult to get perspective on things with the Cold War mindset permeating everything.....)
What I was originally going to post is a note just reminding people that there's no such thing as a hermetic border. Stuff just leaks, especially where there's money involved.
He may be a traitor to his birthplace, but not a traitor to his nation. Apart from a small indigenous population there's not really a "Taiwanese identity" - they are all Han Chinese, the same people that you find in mainland China. Despite geopolitical tensions trade between the mainland and Taiwan is active - and enterpreneurs such as Foxconn's Terry Gou were calling for even closer co-operation for ages.
Oh, and let's not forget that for most of it's history was a dictatorship. Which doesn't really help with building a strong, independent middle-class that could support the foundation of an autonomous Taiwan. Thus Taiwanese are often just as critical with their own history and the Kuomintang as with the Communist Party.
So it's not as black and white as many Westerners would like to believe. When it comes to business opportunities they often feel like they are held back by the US & co. - who do not even recognize them in exchange.
The rise of the CCPs military behemoth was far more enabled by their massive mfg and trade surplus then being desparate to buy gpus. GPUs are fungible, just look at ebay. OTH, Nvidia opening a research center in China - won't be long before the leaks enable Nvidias CCP backed direct competitor to put big dent in their profits, and the CCP would never make that kind of mistake so it's a one way information flow.
To the downvoters: I have a $5 Chinese "Rolex". My father, asking for "something like this" (a DVD case) to ship with products, received an identical one down to the patent number. They sell "Apple" phones that are really Androids running emulations. There are even whole counterfeit Apple stores. (https://www.theregister.com/2011/07/21/fake_apple_stores/) So why would selling Chinese-made gear with an Nvidia label stuck on it be a surprise?
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