This is true in general. In this case, however, there are no efforts I am aware of in the industry that can catch them. Their technological lead is so great, in so many subsystem and science areas, it's likely they will be defacto monopoly in this space for 20 years.
I don't understand this. They made it, surely someone else can too? Are we on the verge of a bunch of industries using hyperspecialization as a monopoly justifier? I mean this sounds just like what I used to hear pre-Snowden about DARPA and the NSA etc, 20 years ahead of the public.
I know. It's difficult to comprehend the scope of science that is required to make this system work as a production machine.
For example, the surface they are printing the chip circuits on has layers of material, say, tungsten, that have thicknesses measured in atoms. As in, 'I need a layer of tungsten 100 atoms thick'. At that scale, the surface is 'bumpy' to the point that you must re-focus each time the wafer/lens moves to the next region on the wafer. This is a mechanical adjustment at atomic scale that has to happen very fast, or you'll never get enough wafers through the machine to pay for it. The solution to just this one subsystem of moving and refocusing required a decade of R&D and dozens of scientists and engineers to get fast enough, reliable enough, repeatable enough to be useful in a production setting.
Yes, others can make a system like this, with a similar amount of R&D spend and personnel and time. They would have to move faster than ASML to ever catch them. They'd have to budget 20 years, 100s of staff and a very large capital budget. In 20 years, ASML will be that much further down the road.
When the DoD was deeply involved with SV instead of just purchasing top binned COTS? At that time they basically were operating with hardware that far ahead, but that was always relative to the general consumer, it didn't stop companies from paying insane prices for marginal improvements that only HFTs and research labs would care about. Nobody would have bothered trying to bring something so expensive to the broader market - remember the multi-core games Intel played for years before AMD started knocking bread off their table?
Also, are you implying that the lack of leaked supercomputing documents is evidence of a commercial technological parity, or did I miss a big reveal (totally possible, haven't been paying attention)? Because as I recall he didn't pull a Manning style dump of operations-level intel (regardless of legality) - he instead coordinated with Greenwald to expose illegal strategic programs (and occasionally a debatable legal one that the DNI lied about in the prior news cycle - which was pretty funny). So I didn't expect any leaks about bleeding edge crypto hardware - because most domestic communication wouldn't need space age tech to break (A5/1 has always been hobbled).
China flat out bribing, kidnapping or blackmailing ASML employees seems perfectly viable. Or sneaking operatives into ASML to steal trade secrets. China is the best in the world at this and they now have huge incentive to try even harder
I wouldn't consider higher wage for engineers and scientists the same as bribing. I mean, one of silicone valleys key strength is the ability for companies to poach from competitors in order to catch up, this cross pollination of ideas is both beneficial to the industry AND individuals.
bribing isn't paying higher wages, it would be paying a huge amount of money for somebody to stay at ASML as a spy and giving you crucial information for money
Isn't it better to just hire them, so they bring you all their years of technical and operational knowledge?
Of course, it requires the new external hires be given enough influence and autonomy. It remains to be seen if Chinese firms are able to integrate international talents effectively.
Why steal if money is no object? If there truly was enough motivation in whatever circles these decisions get made in, they could just offer all the top folks at ASML an eight figure or nine figure salary package. The fact that this hasn't happened yet suggests that it's not as critical as it's made to sound like, or at least those key decision makers don't believe so.
Ironically, the very thing that everyone assumes will allow China to dominate appears to be hamstringing them: politics.
China can say they have a priority on domestic semiconductor production, and they can throw obscene amounts of money at the problem.
But ultimately, something that takes 10+ years to develop isn't appetizing for China's current political climate. It needs to be the best, yesterday.
Consequently, they'll continue throwing money at whoever promises results next year, and starving whoever says it can't be done but offers a realistic plan to eventual dominance.
Capitalism sucks in many ways, but decentralized command economies (national government commands, local supplies) are about the worst of all possible worlds for high knowledge, long lead time, heavy research industries.
Which is why you saw the Soviets do pretty well at heavy industry, but not so well at computers.
>national government commands, local supplies are about the worst of all possible worlds for high knowledge, long lead time, heavy research industries
Yet DARPA and company are behind like half of modern IT technology.
>Which is why you saw the Soviets do pretty well at heavy industry, but not so well at computers
Soviets were fairly behind the US in electronics to begin with, and they had massive production problems everywhere, including heavy industry(turns out that setting every price and production quota from Moscow wasn't really effective).
It's just that heavy industry was easier.
