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Techno-Politics

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Technopolitics, a Technology Lens to Guide Policy – OrionX Download Podcast

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Why is technopolitics a good lens? Technology has always had a big impact on geopolitics and global competitiveness. What’s special now?

A major topic that we’ve wanted to cover for a few years is technopolitics. The impact of technology on national competitiveness, and therefore on policy and supply chain, is growing. We see that in the global gold-rush frenzy towards advanced technologies: exascale supercomputers, quantum computing, AI, space tech, biotech, robotics,  and so on. The first question is: what’s different now? Over the course of history, technology has always had a big impact on geopolitics, on human condition, on global competitiveness. So what’s special now? Join us!

 

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@HPCpodcast-53: Warfare as Product Development, Intel Roadmap

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When soldiers are software engineers a new warfare emerges. Modern warfare is similar to, and needs, high tech product development with fast cycles and incremental improvement. The new Technopolitics section starts with the role of software engineers enlisted in the Ukrain war. Next is the House Committee on Science Space and Technology hearing on “US, China, and the Fight for Global Leadership: Building a U.S. National Science and Technology Strategy”. New and substantial funding (£800m) for the UK Exascale program promises to bring the UK into the exascale world by 2046. (This was subsequently complemented by another £2.5B for quantum technologies.) Under the HPC-AI section of the podcast, we discuss the recent changes to the Intel high-end GPU roadmap and lament the lost opportunity to communicate that better.

 

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@HPCpodcast-42: Chris Miller on Chip War

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Chris Miller, author of the important and riveting book Chip War, joins us to discuss the crucial nature of the semiconductor industry and and the global competition that has been a part of its history since early days. He is Associate Professor of International History at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Eurasia Director at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Chip War has been shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year award.

We had a long list of topics and questions:

  • How did we get here? Was it poor risk management, shear complexity, or too many black swans?
  • The impact of political dysfunction, social polarization, and policy inconsistency on waging such wars.
  • Might Western values and standards of privacy and individual freedom a competitive disadvantage in the age of AI where raw data superiority can lead to economic superiority?
  • Has technology shifted from a situation where it’d be used first in govt/military, then companies, then consumers to now, when it’s the reverse: the consumer market, then companies, then government?
  • How much time is there to regain competitiveness? Why did the US not learn its lessons after Japan’s rise in memory chip fabrication technology? Is there something missing in the public-private partnership model in the US?
  • Is supercomputing its own race or is it subordinate to the bigger tech issue?
  • Was there a lost opportunity to formulate a different, more harmonious, world order?
  • What is the impact of current trade barriers? What options do other countries have?
  • Several of the leading cast in the book seem to have had challenging personal journeys before they became prominent. Is that a coincidence or a requirement to build a world-leading semiconductor company?! Can it be that it is an effective way to instill the kind of discipline and culture that is required to succeed in the chip business?

And we got through most of them.

Join us for this fascinating discussion.

 

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@HPCpodcast-31: ASML Export Control, HPC Software Stack

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Following reports that ASML is under diplomatic pressure to regulate the export of its fabrication equipment to China, we discuss market data, other suppliers of fab equipment, and a quick view of some of ASML’s own suppliers. Also covered are the differences between the approach to Exascale in China and the US based on recent research by Hyperion. We end the episode by setting up the vast universe that is the modern HPC software stack as we prepare to cover it systematically over several episodes. We welcome suggestions for guests who can shed light on the state of software in specific layers.

 

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@HPCpodcast-18: GTC22, Groundbreaking Advances, and Geopolitics

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Shahin and Doug go over what was unveiled at the NVIDIA GTC22 conference, vendor strategies, groundbreaking advances in the industry, and the geopolitics of semiconductors.

 

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@HPCpodcast-7: China, TSMC, and War Games

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In this week’s episode of the @HPCPodcast, Doug Black and Shahin Khan discuss how global competition around advanced technologies has turned geo-politics into “techno-politics” and techno-nationalism. What instigated the discussion this time is a recently published and widely-read academic paper Chip Geopolitics: If China Invades, Make Taiwan ‘Unwantable’ by Destroying TSMC.

 

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