Will the Chinese Use Proxies to Access AI data centers?

[Arthur Hanson]

Will the Chinese use proxies to gain access to AI through data centers? What others methods could foreign powers get access to AI without access to the chips?

 

[Barnsley]

Singapore just had massive Data Center failure coz someone turnes the AC off!!!

Two big local banks down in Singapore for 8hrs+
META locally was down for 3 or 4 hours.

Dont need anything fancy when temp failure can kill it all so easily

 

[Sysreq]

Will the Chinese use proxies to gain access to AI through data centers? What others methods could foreign powers get access to AI without access to the chips?

Ultimately, I don’t even think they will have to go to such an extreme. After the EU imposed sanctions on Russia, German exports to neighboring Kyrgyzstan increased by 900%. Sanctions ultimately add inefficiencies but will never stop something entirely. Countries like Russia, Iran and North Korea are very adept at avoiding sanctions - and so I am positive they would be more than happy to lend their expertise to the Chinese government. Hell during the Cold War, the CIA was able to secure enough titanium from Russia via proxies and shell companies to build 32 SR-71 Blackbirds.

 

[Arthur Hanson]

Ultimately, I don’t even think they will have to go to such an extreme. After the EU imposed sanctions on Russia, German exports to neighboring Kyrgyzstan increased by 900%. Sanctions ultimately add inefficiencies but will never stop something entirely. Countries like Russia, Iran and North Korea are very adept at avoiding sanctions - and so I am positive they would be more than happy to lend their expertise to the Chinese government. Hell during the Cold War, the CIA was able to secure enough titanium from Russia via proxies and shell companies to build 32 SR-71 Blackbirds.

Your dead on, prohibitions, export restrictions only work until the parties figure out work arounds by any method possible. Ways of bypassing restrictions are only limited by the human imagination.

 

[horace]

Your dead on, prohibitions, export restrictions only work until the parties figure out work arounds by any method possible. Ways of bypassing restrictions are only limited by the human imagination.

Bypassing the restriction at what cost? Sanction usually works because of economical reasons, not because it is enforced 100% literally.

 

[Arthur Hanson]

Bypassing the restriction at what cost? Sanction usually works because of economical reasons, not because it is enforced 100% literally.

I don't think the Chinese would have any problem doing this and at a far cheaper cost than buying the chips and running their own data centers. The could break a task into pieces and make it even harder to detect. Where there is a will, there is a way. An ounce of strategy is worth a pound of gold.

 

[Sysreq]

Considering almost all high-end Nvidia cards are still being assembled in China, I would presume the net cost ends up being marginal at best. Look at what happened with Supermicro. Took 7+ years for the world to realize that one of their contractors was adding hardware back doors by placing extra components on the PCB. Entirely possible for a Chinese program to divert finished chips coming in from TSMC by bumping the failure rate on paper. That would shift almost 100% of the “cost” back to Nvidia and TSMC while providing the Chinese government with a nearly unlimited supply for military applications. Or maybe they just side load them by using a Saudi shell company to purchase finished units in bulk and then shipping them discretely to proxies. Really it’s a cat and mouse game that’s almost impossible to win.