Counterpoint: Imagine this line of inquiry that the west has given up on lands China the breakthrough of the century? Given the way the US and EU are conspiring to withhold key chip fab tech, it would be absolutely hilarious if China covertly discovered room temperature superconductivity and the government withholds it as a domestic advantage; blowing away AWS and Microsoft's compute offering with something orders of magnitudes faster and reverse the tech playing field.
I am really relaxed about the US primacy in tech. It has all the systemic advantages and no fluke discovery would change that.
I am also quite relaxed about this preprint. As far as I am concerned the issues pointed out in this post on an actual physics forums with regards to the famous LK-99 preprint still stand with regards to this new paper:
China has one big advance over the US. A government willing to throw unlimited funds and specific science or engineering problems.
To get that kind of commitment you the strong backing of senators from a dozen different states. It rarely happens in non military projects, and when it does it's a boondoggle. Look to the SLS project, $12 billion spent to recycle space shuttle engines from the 70s and 80s.
It's worth noting that, at least on the electronics manufacturing side (which is indeed what we're talking about here) the undeniable success story of TSMC was very much a government-led capital structure from the beginning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC#History
Government can often be a failure-prone capital allocator, but it can also result in improved alignment when an entire industry with wide socioeconomic implications is about to be born.
In this case, subsidies (and incentives) are 'governments throwing money at engineering problems'. The US does the same for SpaceX, EV manufacturers, and the entire military industrial complex – with the latter making tech controlled by the government
The annual NIH budget is >$50B and they earmark large portions of that for specific problems. This has paid off well for the US which became the world's leader in biotechnology and has maintained it for some time. NSF is another $11B, DOE another $50B (part of which is military, I admit).
Those only have a limited dependence on dozens of senators; the NIH typically gets most of what it asks for every year. The US has funded science at spectacular levels in a bipartisan way for some time (that may change in the future). Of course there is still a lot of political bargaining, I'm not going to deny that.
What's interesting is that we could clearly spend even more if we felt it was a priority. There's so much that could be taken from military spending without having a direct impact on our defense. But I don't think we want to do that; during my grad school career, the NIH budget almost doubled, which led to a huge bolus of grad students minted as PhDs, who then had no jobs beccause the size of faculty positions didn't change nearly as quickly.
I admire China's efforts and I see a lot of similarities in China to the US around 1900: the time when the balance of industry and technology shifted from EU to US, but growing your industry super-fast runs the risk of overheating and meltdown.
Yes, NIH funds many projects. Everything from individual investigators who discover new things to massive projects involving hundreds of sites. In fact, they funded so many projects that they found money to fund virus research in china (why????).
But my real points are: "allocation" is not actual spend. And if they do spend that much, they will grow the industry so fast it runs the risk of collapsing or at least not being sustainable, with the inevitable crashes following.
By the time the Ottomans took Constantinople, the Byzantine Empire had been in decline for centuries already. The crusaders and Venetians took Constantinople 200 years previously, and while the Byzantines eventually recaptured it, that was still an ultimately fatal blow. And even that blow was only possible because Venice had been allowed to drift out of the Byzantine sphere of influence.
I immediately regretted my claim soon after posting it, and this was the first example I had in mind, along with this counterargument. If I was to make a further (somewhat weak) counter-argument, it was engineering know-how that established the Roman Empire as a dominant military in the first place, consuming the territories of other empires. It's a safer claim that technological asymmetry permitted the conquest of the less equipped 'societies', rather than 'empires'.
This is almost entirely a myth. If you set aside all of the fantastical prototypes, there are a few plausible examples but none that are truly “amazing”. For example, Germany did develop some of the earliest jet engines, but then again, so did Britain. The Me 262 and Gloster Meteor were introduced within months of each other, and while the Messerschmidt had its advantages, it also required scarce materials and couldn’t be manufactured at scale. Manufacturing issues were also present with the later German tanks, which were also significantly less maintainable and less reliable than Allied tanks.
One place where they were significantly ahead was in large scale rocketry. By the same token, they were significantly and consistently behind the United Kingdom and United States in cryptography, computing, radar, electronics, atomics, and manufacturing—all of which had much more significant strategic impacts.
The Aztecs were toppled because they had alienated all of their neighbors and vassal states. The main thing the Spanish did was to organize everyone against the Aztecs. They had guns and horses, sure, but not nearly enough to singlehandedly make a difference on the battlefield.
I wasn't talking specifically about this paper. If there's some merit to this line of inquiry, and it yields something revolutionary, I think the Chinese government would be foolish not to turn it into leverage. Especially given the recent adversarial climate in trade relations and access to advanced equipment
Any technology will have a very long way from the initial discovery to widespread application. A swarm of tinkering US startups will beat any Chinese megaproject. You propose that it is developed covertly to such an extend that it becomes a game changer that disrupts the current power balance before the US realises. I strongly disbelieve that such things can happen outside of fiction. For example, Manhattan project was known to the Soviets very early.
Startups dont do massive infrastructure investment. The Manhattan project was not a startup, but one of the most expensive things the US government ever did.
> A swarm of tinkering US startups will beat any Chinese megaproject.
I like your fervent almost religious belief in the US.
Is it reality? What boundaries: software, environmental.
Shenzhen felt like the most capitalist place I have ever been. It didn't seem to have big boy VC capital. However every single person seemed to be running a small capitalist business.
Want to see a swarm of businesses? Let one small business in Shenzhen be seen to make a profit, and watch how many competitors and supply chain businesses pop up and how quickly. I don't know if it is a no/low beaurocracy zone but I am guessing they don't have to worry too much about IP roadblocks. I imagine the biggest problem is too much competition?
I suspect young adults grok capitalism better there because as children they were embedded in the culture of endeavour, unlike westernized countries.
I wasn't there for long enough, but would love to hear what others think of business startup in Shenzhen.
You could be right, but it's hard to know how history would play out if a 'new cold war' with China started today, and with such a unique technological asymmetry (as room temperature superconductivity), and with a country that has a great deal more technical capability, self-sufficiency, and scruples than the former USSR.
The thing that brings China all those boons is that they make and sell things to the rest of the world.
Absent free trade, their advantages dwindle.
So the current "just shy of declared adversarial relationships" is optimum for them. Pushed further, say by retaining exclusive access to a game changing technology, and they start losing trade relationships (arguably, already have as manufacturing reallocated to SE Asia).
The trade war between the US and China (and the precipitating outcones) were instigated by the US. The withholding of ASML lithography equipment is a case in point.
That said, in spite of tarrifs from the west, China still has plenty of skin in the game, and the hypothetical suggests that trade would still be open enough for China to profit
>The trade war between the US and China (and the precipitating outcones) were instigated by the US.
That's very arguable when it was the US who led the world in opening up to China in the 90s/early 2000s, opening its markets to China, bringing China into the WTO, etc. (all at great cost to middle class Americans). China was an economic basket case and incapable of developing on its own. No country in history has been more generous to another.
And what did the US get in return? Currency manipulation, large scale economic espionage and mercantilist behavior, protectionism of Chinese markets and industries, fentanyl, militarization of South China Sea and bullying the countries there, largest and fastest military buildup since 1930s Germany, supporting Russia vs Ukraine, threatening war over Taiwan, etc. "Unrestricted warfare".
The US didn't cause China to do any of that, that was all the CCP's decision. Responses like economic derisking/decoupling (aka trade war) are completely legitimate and unsurprising.
>it was the US who led the world in opening up to China in the 90s/early 2000s, opening its markets to China, bringing China into the WTO, etc. (all at great cost to middle class Americans). China was an economic basket case and incapable of developing on its own. No country in history has been more generous to another.
This is hilarious revisionism. We didn't do any of that out of generosity, we did it for profit. We saw a huge pool of cheap labor and decided we wanted to let our companies exploit that. We rubbed our hands together and grinned while selling them the proverbial rope.
If by "we" you mean the 1% of bankers and corporate executives who are the primary beneficiaries of drastically increased profit margins from outsourcing production to countries with no labor or environmental protections, then yes "we" did it for profit.
But if by "we" you mean the large portion of the US middle class whose financial security and upward mobility was obliterated, then no "we" did not do it for profit and were extremely generous, sacrificial even, in lifting hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty when the CCP was unable to do that on their own.
The second "we" was all too happy, and still is, to buy cheaper products, even when apprised of the economic consequences. The third beneficiaries are businesses, for whom components and manufacturing are now vastly cheaper, enabling further (taxable) wealth generation that could support the middle-class.
If the US had a sensible culture (and hence democratically driven government policy) behind education, a skilled labor pool could have emerged to develop high-tech manufacturing that leveraged China's low-skill labor pool. Instead, China has 'hid its strength, and bided its time', establishing its own high-skill labor pool and advanced manufacturing capability, giving it substantial leverage over the entire world, without so much as starting a proxy war, usurping foreign lands, assassinating foreign political leaders, etc.
US hegemony is absolutely its own to lose, but it all depends on the culture driving it.
> That's very arguable when it was the US who led the world in opening up to China in the 90s/early 2000s, opening its markets to China, bringing China into the WTO, etc. (all at great cost to middle class Americans). China was an economic basket case and incapable of developing on its own. No country in history has been more generous to another.
I'm intrigued by the metrics you're using to conclude that the US has been more generous towards China than it has been towards, say, Israel or even Mexico, as a matter of state policy. Especially considering that US placed China under trade embargo and singlehandedly denied it UN representation for 20+ years.
The actions you are describing as representing a historically unprecedented level of generosity seems essentially to boil done to US agreeing to maintain normal trade relations with China, similar to those it has with nearly every other country. Worth noting that the US extends Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to all its trading partners — it's not some exclusive or rare privilege as its name might suggest but a standard practice in international trade.
>than it has been towards, say, Israel or even Mexico,
Partly due to what it cost the US public. Free trade with smaller countries hurts less than one-sided free trade with a protectionist mercantilist country 4x your population. (one-sided due to required joint ventures, unilateral bans on US social media, currency manipulation, among others)
> and singlehandedly denied it UN representation for 20+ years.
To be pedantic, the US didn't deny China representation for 20+ years, just the CCP. The ROC was a founding member of the UN and permanent Security Council member. US just opposed the CCP replacing it until 1971. Given the instability of CCP regime during that time - famine,
Cultural Revolution - that wasn't an unreasonable position.
> similar to those it has with nearly every other country.
Except the Communist bloc countries, USSR, Cuba, etc. Extending MFN to China while they were still Communist was unprecedented.
> Given the instability of CCP regime during that time
The fentanyl histrionic in your earlier comment is especially good paired with this endorsement of the 50s/60s KMT, who were busy fighting an insurgency to establish and maintain a heroin cartel.
Afaik, their domestic middle class market isn't nearby big enough to singlehandedly fuel their economy.
And they'll economically-politically run up against the "middle class wants things like political power and freedom" if they try to balloon that class too quickly.
The number one most systemic difference going forward is population. China already has hundreds of millions living the equivalent of a middle-class US lifestyle. That is a massive prosperous population to draw scientists, etc. from.
If China discovers this, publishes papers on it, and patents it, you can be 100% sure that the west will just ignore any patents and fabricate it themselves.
Possible, but many of the economic benefits would be lost if you needed to do it covertly.
Can't exactly have room temperature superconducting monorails all over the nation without someone questioning exactly how you have room temp superconductors and nobody else does...
I’m fancying that a centrally managed economy might be able to do this, where a democratic capitalist economy may not. But I agree it’s a bit of a leap
It's an interesting thought experiment. I can entertain the idea of a superconductor staying a secret in a military environment, but I can't imagine it getting widescale commercial use and staying a secret.
Sure I think the idea fanciful, and I agree that keeping the tech from leaking would be close to impossible, but if the stakes were high enough, maybe a centrally governed and authoritarian government like China could pull it off. It's at least fun to think about.
a researcher builds a device that can record and play back experiences which takes up most of a room, in a meeting with his boss, he receives some secret microchips made of a room temperature superconductor that he uses to make headsets.
Thank you for that. I had never encountered this film. I think parallels could also be drawn to the (highly underrated) Counterpart Series, where a researcher in Berlin accidentally creates a portal to a parallel earth and a cold war between the two world ensues.
My understanding is that while you can reverse engineer something like a new material via trial and effort plus some basic lab analysis of samples.....stuff like chips are a PITA to reverse engineer.
My understanding is that a major hurdle is just how tiny everything is on modern chiplets. If I remember right....someone managed to reverse engineer the Intel 8086 or the 8080....but my understanding is that our lithography is so complex at this point you can't accurately reverse engineer the physical chip layout. If one could reverse engineer the physical layout and chemical layers...you could probably use that information to reverse engineer the photolithography mask and chemical etching step.
TLDR: we can't reverse those modern server CPU's ....we can only learn via what the fan or the chiplet owner be it Intel or and or apple decides to release regarding architecture or chip layout.
Back when I worked at TI we had a neat machine that used X-Rays to map and reverse competitor chips (mostly to discover they were duping ours). It would work down to just short of a 10nm resolution.
You'd need to use gamma spectrography to map out more modern chips. I'm sure someone's got the equipment somewhere; the chip manufacturers themselves must verify they got a good etch somehow.
As someone whose every move is monitored by some of the most well-funded, best-equipped, and ethically questionable intelligence agencies his tax money can buy, I look forward to seeing how long they can keep this secret.
It doesn't need to be secret, just obscure. Don't believe the intelligence agencies are always intelligent or always there to help you or their host countries. Shin bet and their mishandling of Rabin and the recent October attacks prove this, as well as the CIA's pointless declassified wastes of money, often against American interests.
I was making subtle reference to ASML withholding lithography machines from China. One could ask why China is yet to replicate their technology if know-how is so permeable
Even if you had a room temp SC manufacturing chips out of it would be a whole different issue. In fact we already have a material that can be used to build chips that can be clocked a couple OOM higher than silicon. It's just graphite. But even with a well known material like that and decades to try, the manufacturing capability still isn't there.
This would actually be an amazing outcome because there's no way they could keep it secret (it would spur both espionage and intense research), and the US would end up being able to reproduce their formula. It would make things "exciting" again in a way we haven't really seen since the space race.
It's a hypothetical I haven't really ruminated on. But I suppose it would be a new cold war scenario with superconductivity supremacy swapped out for nuclear first-strike capability, and similar levels of espionage
