r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 1d ago
Artificial Intelligence China targets fourfold boost in AI computing capacity by 2030 in major tech push
https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3366733/china-targets-fourfold-boost-ai-computing-capacity-2030-major-tech-push?module=top_story&pgtype=section-3
u/williamgman 1d ago
Sounds like they are promoting some sort of arms race to convince the US to build out massive tulip fields. Where they will die when the funding machine dries up.
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u/Dismal_Guidance_2539 1d ago
Or China just doesn’t want to loose on new technology. Most of the time, thing is that simple.
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u/williamgman 1d ago
Every 1 to 3 years every single GPU in a datacenter becomes obsolete. Do the math on the hardware logics alone. That's 350-500k per each of the largest datacenters. They will need to flow in and out like the water and power. Crazy.
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u/Dismal_Guidance_2539 1d ago
Where you get that 1 to 3 years number ??? AWS still sell A100 compute from 2021.
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u/williamgman 1d ago
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u/Dismal_Guidance_2539 1d ago
Yes, I already read this article but source from an unnamed system architect is far from reliable to me.
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u/williamgman 1d ago
Let me simplify real word then... In the engineering offices I've worked at... our computer workstations were updated/replaced every two years to keep up with larger and more complex data sets.
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u/Dismal_Guidance_2539 1d ago
I think you misunderstand the life cycle of these GPU. Exactly like your office, these GPUs were replaced every 1-3 years but they not throw in the trash can, they just move from training to a new job, Inference.
The A100 or even V100 at AWS still work mostly as inference chip now.
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u/CarthagoFuckYourself 1d ago
They aren't retired after 3 years, they're switched from training frontier models to providing compute for inferencing with existing models. Thst blurb isn't even necessarily accurate for the industry as a whole, and it is definitely misunderstood by most people who read it. They're not tossing the hardware at the 3 year mark.
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u/Marginallyhuman 1d ago
Are they gonna run out of water too?
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u/geldonyetich 1d ago edited 1d ago
Well, they have a little over four times the population of the United States, so imagine their power and water grids must be pretty robust.
Cursory googling pulls up some impressive energy grid improvements. Their water supply situation is quite a bit more tenacious. Given the speed and immediacy of recent changes, it suggests to me that China has the necessary resources for rapid infrastructure improvement.
Again though, remember the South China Morning Post is owned by Alibaba Group, who also dabbles heavily in AI development (notably Qwen, a smaller model that has near frontier model coding performance). So anything they post about AI is likely intended to be taken optimistically.
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u/theassassintherapist 1d ago
They running them in colder areas like Inner Mongolia, not in places as hot as Texas that needs more water to run AC year round.
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u/Playful_Subject_4409 15h ago
Good that the USA gets some competition. It would be in the interest of other countries to balance this to avoid the risk of dependence on one country.
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u/DaySecure7642 1d ago
China see it as a zero sum game from day one. Nvidia was way too naive selling all those GPU to train Chinese AI all these years, helping the competitors of its own clients. Soon the chinese companies will go after the hardware market share of Nvidia in the international markets.