U.S. Chip Industry Looks to Cut Out Chinese Companies Secretly, To Keep Selling their Stuff To A Lucrative Huge Chinese Market

"The U.S. semiconductor industry is uprooting Chinese companies from supply chains, spurred by directives from Washington seeking to suppress China's involvement in sensitive next-generation technology.

Chip toolmakers are telling suppliers that they need to find alternatives to certain components obtained from China or risk losing their vendor status. 

Companies relaying this message include Applied Materials and Lam Research, according to people familiar with the matter. The two Silicon Valley companies make equipment used in the production of microprocessors and are among the world's biggest manufacturers of these tools.

Suppliers have also been told that they can't have Chinese investors or shareholders, the people said.

Industry executives said such moves were likely to raise costs because it won't be easy to find non-Chinese alternatives at similar prices.

Lam Research said it adheres to U.S. export controls for companies in the chip-manufacturing supply chain. Applied Materials said it identifies alternative sources for components to make sure they are available.

Washington is becoming increasingly strict on Chinese imports. The two main U.S. presidential candidates have pledged to get tougher on trade with China, and the semiconductor industry is seen as particularly critical because of its importance to national security.

In recent years, U.S. lawmakers have blocked China from acquiring the most advanced chips and chip-making equipment. That equipment is generally made or designed in the U.S. and in regions friendly to the U.S., including Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Western Europe.

The steps by Applied Materials and others involve trade in the opposite direction, when Chinese parts or tools are acquired by semiconductor-equipment makers based in the U.S. or U.S.-friendly regions. U.S. officials fear that if companies rely on Chinese suppliers for parts, it could hand Beijing a card to play against the U.S. in a crisis.

The Commerce Department issued rules last year requiring U.S. toolmakers to obtain licenses before sharing technical details and plans with Chinese suppliers. They were given a temporary license to keep such current suppliers, one that expires at the end of 2025. This summer, the department made explicit that suppliers outside China were also subject to these controls if their parent company was based in China.

Applied Materials and Lam Research informed their vendors of their directives verbally, and didn't include it in any official vendor guidelines or agreements, people familiar with the matter said.

Finding alternatives to Chinese suppliers isn't always easy, and any overt move to sideline the country risks angering policymakers in one of the world's largest markets for semiconductor-making equipment. China is the biggest customer for both Applied Materials and Lam Research globally." [1]

Here is a lesson for naive Lithuanian politicians: make them drown, but secretly, politely, smiling and not writing anything. And you: "Representative Offices of Taiwanese, Representative Offices of Taiwanese..." You are not in danger of getting smarter at least for some time.

1. World News: U.S. Chip Industry Looks to Cut Out Chinese Companies. Lin, Liza; Fitch, Asa.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 05 Nov 2024: A.7

 

„Physical Intelligence“, robotinio dirbtinio intelekto specialistas, renka milijonus dolerių iš Bezoso

  „Startuolis surinko 400 mln. dolerių.

 

 „Physical Intelligence“, dirbtinio intelekto startuolis, siekiantis sukurti smegenis įvairiausiems robotams, pirmadienį planuoja paskelbti, kad iš pagrindinių investuotojų surinko 400 mln. dolerių.

 

 Raundui vadovavo Jeffas Bezosas, „Amazon“ vykdomasis pirmininkas, ir rizikos kapitalo įmonės „Thrive Capital“ ir „Lux Capital“. Kiti investuotojai yra „OpenAI“, „Redpoint Ventures“ ir „Bond“.

 

 Pritraukus lėšas, bendrovė įsivertino apie 2 milijardus dolerių, neįskaitant naujų investicijų. Tai gerokai daugiau, nei 70 mln. JAV dolerių, kuriuos šiemet įkurtas startuolis surinko pradiniam finansavimui.

 

 Bendrovė nori sukurti pagrindinę programinę įrangą, kuri veiktų bet kuriam robotui, o ne tradiciniu metodu, kai kuriama programinė įranga konkrečioms mašinoms ir konkrečioms užduotims.

 

 „Tai, ką mes darome, nėra tik konkretaus roboto smegenys“, – sakė bendrovės įkūrėjas ir vadovas Karolis Hausmanas. „Tai vienos bendros smegenys, galinčios valdyti bet kurį robotą."

 

 Tai sudėtinga užduotis: norint sukurti tokį modelį, reikia daug duomenų apie tai, kaip veikti realiame pasaulyje. Tie informacijos rinkiniai iš esmės neegzistuoja, todėl įmonė verčiama juos sudaryti.

 

 Jos darbui padėjo dideli dirbtinio intelekto (A.I.) modeliai, galintys interpretuoti vaizdinius duomenis.

 

 Tarp bendrovės įkūrėjų yra ponas Hausmanas, buvęs „Google“ robotikos mokslininkas; Sergey Levine, Kalifornijos universiteto Berklio profesorius; ir Lachy Groom, investuotojas ir buvęs mokėjimų milžinės „Stripe“ vadovas.

 

 Praėjusią savaitę paskelbtame dokumente „Physical Intelligence“ parodė, kaip jos programinė įranga, vadinama π0 arba pi-nulis, leido robotams sulankstyti skalbinius, išvalyti stalą, išlyginti dėžę ir dar daugiau.

 

 „Tai tikras generalistas“, - sakė J. Hausmanas.

 

  „Physical Intelligence“ vadovai teigė, kad jo programinė įranga buvo artimesnė GPT-1, pirmojo OpenAI paskelbto pokalbių robotų modeliui, nei pažangesnėms smegenims, kurios maitina ChatGPT.

 

 Ponas Groomas sakė, kad sunku numatyti pažangos tempą: „ChatGPT“ stiliaus proveržis „gali įvykti daug greičiau, nei tikimės, arba tikrai gali būti toli“.

 

 Robotikos sritis A.I. tampa perpildyta, žaidėjų, įskaitant Skildą, kuri taip pat dirba su bendrosios paskirties robotu A.I.; Figūra AI, kurios rėmėjai yra OpenAI ir ponas Bezosas; ir „Covariant“, kuri daugiausia dėmesio skiria pramoniniam pritaikymui.

 

 „Amazon“ yra labai suinteresuota pramone ir į savo veiklą įtraukė daugiau robotų, siekdama sumažinti išlaidas ir greičiau gauti užsakymus klientams. Tesla taip pat turi didelių A.I. ambicijų, o Elonas Muskas neseniai pasakė, kad kompanijos robotas - humanoidas būtų „didžiausias visų laikų produktas.“ [1]

 

1. Physical Intelligence, a Robot A.I. Specialist, Raises Millions From Bezos. Michael J. de la Merced.  New York Times (Online) New York Times Company. Nov 4, 2024.

Physical Intelligence, a Robot A.I. Specialist, Raises Millions From Bezos

 

"The start-up raised $400 million in a funding round with investments from the likes of Jeff Bezos, Thrive Capital and OpenAI.

Physical Intelligence, an artificial intelligence start-up seeking to create brains for a wide variety of robots, plans to announce on Monday that it had raised $400 million in financing from major investors.

The round was led by Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s executive chairman, and the venture capital firms Thrive Capital and Lux Capital. Other investors include OpenAI, Redpoint Ventures and Bond.

The fund-raising valued the company at about $2 billion, not including the new investments. That’s significantly more than the $70 million that the start-up, which was founded this year, had raised in seed financing.

The company wants to make foundational software that would work for any robot, instead of the traditional approach of creating software for specific machines and specific tasks.

“What we’re doing is not just a brain for any particular robot,” said Karol Hausman, the company’s co-founder and chief executive. “It’s a single generalist brain that can control any robot.”

It’s a tricky task: Building such a model requires a huge amount of data on how to operate in the real world. Those information sets largely do not exist, compelling the company to compile its own. 

Its work has been aided by big leaps in A.I. models that can interpret visual data.

Among the company’s co-founders are Mr. Hausman, a former robotics scientist at Google; Sergey Levine, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley; and Lachy Groom, an investor and former executive at the payments giant Stripe.

In a paper published last week, Physical Intelligence showed how its software — called π0, or pi-zero — enabled robots to fold laundry, clear a table, flatten a box and more.

“It’s a true generalist,” Mr. Hausman said.

Physical Intelligence executives said that its software was closer to GPT-1, the first model published for chatbots by OpenAI, than to the more advanced brains that power ChatGPT.

Mr. Groom said that it was hard to predict the rate of progress: A ChatGPT-style breakthrough “could be far sooner than we expect, or it could definitely be far out.”

The field of robotics A.I. is getting crowded, with players including Skild, which is also working on general-purpose robot A.I.; Figure AI, whose backers include OpenAI and Mr. Bezos; and Covariant, which focuses on industrial applications.

Amazon has a vested interest in the industry, and has been adding more robots in its operations as it seeks to drive down costs and get orders to customers faster. Tesla also has major A.I. ambitions, with Elon Musk recently saying that the company’s humanoid robot would be “the biggest product ever of any kind.”" [1]

1. Physical Intelligence, a Robot A.I. Specialist, Raises Millions From Bezos. Michael J. de la Merced.  New York Times (Online) New York Times Company. Nov 4, 2024.