this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
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It never made any sense...
China used Nvidia because that's what it had, but they have virtually no patent law and a giant workforce experienced at making chips
Any idiot could have predicted if you cut China off from Nvidia chips, they'd use their own, quickly surpass Nvidia, leaving Americans not being able to ripoff Chinese progress, unless we get our hands on the new Chinese chips if they're not direct ripoffs of what Nvidia is doing.
Even if they start that way, it's a fork. China will do things that Nvidia isn't.
Eventually they'll diverage enough to separate, unless Nvidia is copying China, which means they'll always be a lag.
American's corporate structure is what can't compete with China. Our corporations own our government, in China the government owns the corporations. And with a one party government that doesn't have to worry about elections, they can plan decades or longer at a time. Corps by definition only care one financial quarter at a time.
Both countries have rampant corruption and can do a lot better, but having a government in charge of corps will always work out better than corps running a government.
The problem is American corps would rather lose if the only way to win is give up their power in America. Hell, we already saw with Chinese EVs that corps can just make the government outlaw competitors so they don't have to compete and maintain profits.
If a government controlled corporations, theyd be ok with domestic companies being forced to adapt, or go out of business and be replaced by a new one. In America corporations can no longer fail, and that will eventually cause the country to fail if it's not fixed.
Two parties is bad enough. I will never, ever trust a one-party government. That's like — what if conspiracy theories, but they are just public policy? Frankly not unlike our government currently, but I'd prefer more parties than fewer.
Two wings of the same bird of prey, unfortunately.
Democracy is broken now. It used to work but whatever it has evolved into now doesn't. Both sides don't work together for the better. How long does anything take to do? It is insane and when one side gets in they just cancel everything the other side did its pathetic.
That's mostly just Trump. He's a complete moron, and tbh we will probably spend a decade or two undoing the stupid shit he has done — if we can. A lot of this bullshit we are stuck with until there is a big shakeup of the Supreme Court.
Absent Trump, however, mostly the efforts of both sides carry forward. Also, the world is a plate spinning on top of a pole. At any given moment, it threatens to topple, and we need parties to adjust the axis so everything keeps spinning. If it gets yanked in one direction, the wobble gets really bad and we risk the plate falling. One party really only pulls in one direction. Two parties really only pull back and forth. Multiple parties would do a much better job of finding the center where everything keeps spinning smoothly.
I agree the policy never made sense, but Chinese chips are still a few generations behind and will remain that way for a while.
China currently has a physical limit to transistor size that is enforced by the physics of their lithography machines. They are doing everything they can to use export-controlled ASML technology including rebuilding prior generational tech from the second-hand market, but that is a.K2-level sheer-face climb. Considering how much unique knowledge ASML and TSMC have, even corporate espionage can't fill in those gaps probably for a decade.
They absolutely are using homegrown chips that are lower quality and making up for it in quantity, however, using older lithography.
Buddy...
That's the problem.
China has "worse" chips, but they're finding ways to make them beat the "best" chips...
If China still used Nvidia, then others could rip off their gains in code and training.
But once Chinese chips are different enough, then all of the Nvidia line the west is sinking money into at an unprecedented rate becomes the guy who sank his inheritance into a Betamax rental store.
All those data centers, manufacturing, everything, obsolete.
But American companies won't admit that, because then they stop making money. And they control the American government, so no one will stop them.
We're going full speed towards a massive technological deadend, because the people driving the bus know that if they crash, they can make the government use our tax money to bail them out.