Beijing issues list of approved CPUs

I mean, we do the same thing, for the same reasons, with our government and defense procurement orders these days. This isn’t that weird. It’s only weird in that they’re clearly cutting themselves off from the best high-volume x86 CPU manufacturers that currently exist, but aside from that, the geopolitical and strategic calculus adds up.

Gee, now it makes me think there's an ulterior motive to conquering Taiwan..
- Yes, all of the most advanced chip making factories are in Taiwan. It's the biggest reason that the US passed the CHIPS act and also why there is so much geopolitical tension around Taiwan.
  
  Why did you think there was so much focus on Taiwan? Boba is great and all, but surely it doesn't merit the protection of the US Navy. 😁
- The entire reason they haven't tried yet is because they know they can't do it without TSMC being scuttled.
- Well the thing is Taiwan's official name is the Republic of China and they, just like the People's Republic of China, consider themselves to be China. Officially it is a reunification (by force if necessary) of the two China's. Its not like North and South Korea where they are officially separate countries because they both consider themselves to be one country. It's a complicated situation from a civil war and colonization from Japan.
Hey China I made you this sweet horse statue in the form of an x86 processor -- You should put it in the town square to show it off and then all go to sleep....
x86 is dying, legacy processing. It's all GPU's and ARM processing now. Apple is leaning hard into it so they set themselves as a leader in AI in the future.
- You very obviously don’t understand the truly enormous power of technical inertia.
- Except a lot of infrastructure runs on legacy software. There's stuff built on like windows 2000 that is still used by hospitals and governments.
- Permanently Deleted
- Gaming though. The gaming situation on other cpus is passable at best. AFAIK you can't put a 4070ti and have it work in any non x86 system right now.
- You're getting down voted but in all honesty, you're not wrong. All it takes is one x86/64 alternative to show the world that Intel and AMD aren't the only players in the game. Apple did it with ARM and the m1 chip, now we're hearing reports of Microsoft actually putting a real effort into ARM and making their own chips for AI instead of that half-assed Windows on ARM initiative. I for one love this competition, because that only benefits the consumers.
- ARM computers are positively repugnant. This abobination of an architecture MUST be exterminated.

This might just be for government computers, not the entire country - see https://www.ft.com/content/7bf0f79b-dea7-49fa-8253-f678d5acd64a

Still, the overall direction and intent is clear.

understandible given how the Americans are treating Huawei.

Only Chinese code is present, namely [lists three linux distros]

Linus Torvalds: *clears throat*

China Huawei'ing Linux

China bans Intel and AMD from government machines, the US blocked Huawei from the entirety of the US.

Unless I’m misreading the article Intel and AMD are banned for EVERYONE not just government.
- That article is poorly written. This one is more informative. Since there's a paywall, I'll quote a few relevant parts:
  
  "China has introduced new guidelines that will mean US microprocessors from Intel and AMD are phased out of government PCs and servers, as Beijing ramps up a campaign to replace foreign technology with homegrown solutions.
  
  The stricter government procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favour of domestic options."
  
  ...
  
  "Officials have begun following the new PC, laptop and server guidelines this year, after they were unveiled with little fanfare by the finance ministry and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) on December 26. They order government agencies and party organs above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases. "

I mean, i get it. But i wish the world would just work together on everything and stop with the country bullshit. Imagine the stuff we could make if everyone worked together.

Brothers, brothers! We should be struggling together!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHHitXxH-us
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  
  https://www.piped.video/watch?v=kHHitXxH-us
  
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

Well they probably know what they put in the CPUs they export to the US and Europe, so why would they?

I mean more Arm on Linux sounds dope to me I guess

I like the power conservation but I hate the "SoC"
- Ampere CPUs use normal DIMMs, and don't have integrated storage, like any other CPU. So you can have the best of both worlds (although idk about power conservation, they are efficient though).

Whatever that gets a RISC-V open source chip made i am supporting don't care if its china or russia lets just hope this makes the giants follow along .

China, Russia, and open source? Hahaha
- Execs from Huawei and Tencent are on the board of directors for the Linux Foundation.
- Yeah i also thought about it but decided to be optimistic for a sec . Atleast i hope they indirectly press others to do so.
- common enemies make strange bedfellows. Tech giants aren't just a threat to the US domestically.

What bothers me is the kernel version. Only one OS is on Linux 5 while the rest are on Linux 4‽

A debian based dystopia, I like it
Seems like a continuation of the sad state of affairs for ARM chips. Most of the allowed chips are ARM based, and most companies making ARM chips never update their kernels

In a bizarre turn of events, it seems the reclusive nation of North Korea has finally succumbed to the intense chip envy brought on by China's recent announcement of its approved CPU list. In an effort to keep pace with neighboring rivals, Kim Jong-un ordered the immediate development of a state-of-the-art microchip. And thus, 'The Juche Chip' was born - named after North Korea's philosophy of self-reliance.

After months of hard work, North Korean engineers presented their masterpiece: a CPU so advanced, it can run MS-DOS smoothly on Windows ME. This revolutionary breakthrough in computing technology also boasts an impressive clock speed that's roughly equivalent to the rate at which time moves inside a Pyongyang prison cell. With the Juche Chip, users will never have to worry about lagging, overheating or any other technical issues because their system will freeze before such problems could even arise.

Databases also make the list, and again nothing from Western devs made the cut. But Alibaba Cloud's PolarDB is mentioned, as is Tencent’s TDSQL and a handful of other made-in-China efforts.

That's a big one.

Unless Chinese firms have been straight-up stealing trade secrets and code from the likes of Oracle and have produced such a blatant knock-off of their software that in any other country, they would have been sued out of existence, I can see a five week transition being messy-as-fuck.

Transitions to new database systems take months or even years to implement, not the 5 weeks mandated by the Chinese Communist Party. This is especially the case when you're dealing with important stakeholder data, huge data volumes and/or statutory requirements like financial reporting.

100% someday they will use the approved CPU list to have only those with secure boot/locked bootloader enforcing only their approved operating systems too.

So, like our horrible cellphones

This is the best summary I could come up with:

AMD and Intel are not present on a list of processors approved by China's Information Security Evaluation Center.

The x86 architecture does make the list, but only in chips made by Shanghai Zhaoxin Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd – which is minority-owned by Taiwan's Via Technologies and holds a license to produce x86 processors.

The other approved chip shops make processors powered by Arm cores or, in the case of Loongson Technologies, the RISC-V architecture.

Second, the Financial Times found it over the weekend and reported that publication of the list accelerated efforts in China to replace Western tech and hardware with locally developed kit.

The FT chatted to some IT shops inside China and they confirmed that they're phasing out items like PCs running Windows, because shop-at-home mandates have taken force.

Last week, authorities again called on web platforms to police more vigilantly the use of provocative typos and puns that can be construed as criticism of the Chinese Communist Party.

The original article contains 463 words, the summary contains 161 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Can't even source their own chips. Need to buy from the real China, Taiwan.

China is a fucking joke.

Make RISC-V great again
- Loongson is fully Chinese. Only the x86 chips have a Taiwan joint.
authorities again called on web platforms to police more vigilantly the use of provocative typos and puns that can be construed as criticism of the Chinese Communist Party.

Criticism? Jail. Puns? Jail. Spelling mistake? Believe it or not, jail. We have the highest literacy in the world. Because of jail.

I'm all for critiquing China where it makes sense but this just seems like the same national security measures the West has taken in the past (Huawei 5G anyone?)

It's also defacto mandating that their CCP approved Spyware chips are in place
- Spyware chips are far more problematic than just using boring old software. Why bother when you can just bundle the spyware into your own Linux distro?
- Yeah! Can't they just get Apple and Microsoft to postpone updates for exploit those vulnerabilities? Oh wait...
  
  Hi, Europeans! This is a careful reminder to use Linux. Step away from yankee companies.

None of the CPUs on that list contain Intel Management Engine. What gives China, you don't want a CPU in your CPU?

Is this really a surprise since we ban them from using our tech. I wouldn't want my tech to hinge on an other country that doesn't want me to have the stronger than average stuff either tbh.