News Intel CEO says China must make its own chips if sanctions are too restrictive, points to EUV as key cutoff point

[Admin]

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger told Tom's Hardware during a question and answer session at Computex 2024 that China must make its own processors if US sanctions on the latest chips become too restrictive.

Intel CEO says China must make its own chips if sanctions are too restrictive, points to EUV as key cutoff point : Read more

 

[ThomasKinsley]

I don't know. Gelsinger is openly saying he wants China to be restricted enough so they can't get ahead but open enough so Intel can sell lots of chips and make money. That may be true but it certainly won't help his quest to gain more customers. Some things are better left unsaid.

 

[renz496]

I don't know. Gelsinger is openly saying he wants China to be restricted enough so they can't get ahead but open enough so Intel can sell lots of chips and make money. That may be true but it certainly won't help his quest to gain more customers. Some things are better left unsaid.

More like he want no restriction when it comes to sales. But just saying those thing so his statement are "compliant" with the sanctions.

 

[hotaru251]

but open enough so Intel can sell lots of chips and make money.

business 101: profit before all else.

but it certainly won't help his quest to gain more customers

won't matter.
you can hate a company & the people but use the product if its what you need.

business rarely ever lets stuff like words effect their stuff unless its on the level of the nvidia apple hate.

 

[ThomasKinsley]

business 101: profit before all else.

I understand that perspective, but there is a difference between short term success and long term profits. If Intel wishes to gain sales in China, then they shouldn't be publicly talking about preventing China from obtaining their own chips. That's surely going to irritate potential Chinese customers or groups paying attention.

won't matter.
you can hate a company & the people but use the product if its what you need.

business rarely ever lets stuff like words effect their stuff unless its on the level of the nvidia apple hate.

That's true for most of the world, but China is nationalist in sentiment. When the Kirin 9000S was released in Huawei's Mate 60 Pro (and 9010 for the Pura 70), it garnered a wave of sales despite being only marginally better than the SnapDragon 888, which was released in late 2020. Now Apple is employing significant discounts on their iPhones in China to win back customers. I'm sure Intel sees this and wants to prevent it, but to openly say they want US policy to be crafted in such a way so China does not succeed in making their own chips is not the best strategy. They can say this privately, but to say it publicly is, imho, corporate suicide.

Let's put it this way: suppose a Chinese executive openly said he wanted his government to stop your country's tech companies from gaining self sufficiency so he could keep you as his captive customer. Would you be OK with that? From my view, this is bad optics.

 

[rgooding77]

The statement that China must make it's own processors if the sanctions are too strict is... obvious, and is happening already - that man isn't a genius, he's just moaning about all the money Intel's not making, he's also alluding to the fact that intel IS willing to help china with chip production btw. (Make note of that!) and all the future benefits it could have for Intel.

Of course, Intel wants China to keep buying its products now as always, China really wants to stop buying and create it's own, it's just being forced to slow down with these sanctions - ironically, the harder the sanctions are, the better for China as it will sink more money to compensate whilst taking whatever it can via sanctions to still grow, it'll just grow internally faster, until possibly it's mature enough to dominate the chip industry one day with it's massive industrial base. (kinda like what it's doing now with EV's)

IF intel is willing to help china grow off the books just enough to change the rate of growth, china may take the lead eventually. (this has happened before with cars made in china btw. - ask VW how it feels about that now)

The only problem is - the rate of innovation is rising, new technology is fueling new industries, the demand for CPU power is increasing and China is late to the game when it comes to internal CPU production - and here's the key to this - if the world (and by that i mean Taiwan and Korea mostly) can keep innovating and growing new production nodes faster than china can build it's local industry, it won't matter as it'll always be behind - and IF the sanctions are helping to hold it back just enough - then it's always playing catch up.
(Duh - sanctions do work, but only if everyone else is onboard)

The race for CPU dominance lies with the current players in the short term, not the upcoming China production - which is why Taiwan becomes so much more important for China btw. and is alarming to Intel also. (unless china comes up with a new way to produce chips of course - in the long term)

Presently, Intel (and pretty much everyone else) doesn't produce their own chips on the latest nodes anymore and just offshore's it all to Taiwan and Korea - problem is china wants to swallow Taiwan and when they do, US sanctions wont work at all and the US will be in BIG trouble, and so will Intel.

Intel is a prime benefactor of all this btw as it'll get paid to rebuild US fabs to protect US interests - and is now scrambling to re-create it in the US to protect it's livelyhood by trying to stay relevant in the face of pending geopolitical tensions and the reality that it can't afford to fall further behind.

China needs to build it's own chips = Intel being paid to rebuild its production base in the US and still grow in china one way or the other, even if it has to do so on the sly.

That man is an idiot - and a genius.

 

[Pierce2623]

I understand that perspective, but there is a difference between short term success and long term profits. If Intel wishes to gain sales in China, then they shouldn't be publicly talking about preventing China from obtaining their own chips. That's surely going to irritate potential Chinese customers or groups paying attention.



That's true for most of the world, but China is nationalist in sentiment. When the Kirin 9000S was released in Huawei's Mate 60 Pro (and 9010 for the Pura 70), it garnered a wave of sales despite being only marginally better than the SnapDragon 888, which was released in late 2020. Now Apple is employing significant discounts on their iPhones in China to win back customers. I'm sure Intel sees this and wants to prevent it, but to openly say they want US policy to be crafted in such a way so China does not succeed in making their own chips is not the best strategy. They can say this privately, but to say it publicly is, imho, corporate suicide.

Let's put it this way: suppose a Chinese executive openly said he wanted his government to stop your country's tech companies from gaining self sufficiency so he could keep you as his captive customer. Would you be OK with that? From my view, this is bad optics.

I just wanted to point out that Kirin 9000s actually performed closer to a sd865 on the CPU side and just has a higher antutu score simply because it has a really big GPU.

 

[35below0]

Let's put it this way: suppose a Chinese executive openly said he wanted his government to stop your country's tech companies from gaining self sufficiency so he could keep you as his captive customer. Would you be OK with that?

There is no such thing as a Chinese executive. In China, there is only the party, and the leader.
"Executives" may be given a longer leash, but it's always there. And the party is not commited to best business practises, only it's own existence.

Whether we're ok with that or not is neither here nor there.

 

[NinoPino]

There is no such thing as a Chinese executive. In China, there is only the party, and the leader.

And as with any hierarchical structure you have also Executives, or did you think that Xi do all itself.

"Executives" may be given a longer leash, but it's always there. And the party is not commited to best business practises, only it's own existence.

The facts of last years says that Chinese government have no serious internal opposition and it is all committed to a strong Chinese economic dominance.
For sure more effective than what press is describing (look for example at the anti-corruption laws in China).