The Geopolitical Vulnerability of Taiwan in the AI Chip Industry

10min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

This chapter explores Taiwan's role as a major chip producer and its vulnerability in potential conflicts with China, focusing on the implications for chip supply chains and the risks associated with energy supply and blockade scenarios. It draws parallels to a 'compute Cold War' and discusses the significance of AI access in modern competition, highlighting the potential impacts on wealth inequality and the challenges of cognitive tasks mechanization.

Beneath the race to train and release more powerful AI models lies another race: a race by companies and nation-states to secure the hardware to make sure they win AI supremacy.

Correction: The latest available Nvidia chip is the Hopper H100 GPU, which has 80 billion transistors. Since the first commercially available chip had four transistors, the Hopper actually has 20 billion times that number. Nvidia recently announced the Blackwell, which boasts 208 billion transistors - but it won’t ship until later this year.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA

Chip War: The Fight For the World’s Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller

To make sense of the current state of politics, economics, and technology, we must first understand the vital role played by chips

Gordon Moore Biography & Facts

Gordon Moore, the Intel co-founder behind Moore's Law, passed away in March of 2023

Nvidia's GPUs are in high demand - and the company is using AI to accelerate chip production

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES

Future-proofing Democracy In the Age of AI with Audrey Tang

How Will AI Affect the 2024 Elections? with Renee DiResta and Carl Miller

The AI ‘Race’: China vs. the US with Jeffrey Ding and Karen Hao

Protecting Our Freedom of Thought with Nita Farahany

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_