[ExI] Trump Is Doubling Down on His Disastrous A.I. Chip Policy

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat
Sent: Thursday, 18 December, 2025 9:38 AM
To: ExI Chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>; extropolis at googlegroups.com; 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everything-list at googlegroups.com>
Cc: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com>
Subject: [ExI] Trump Is Doubling Down on His Disastrous A.I. Chip Policy

 

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription.

Trump Is Doubling Down on His Disastrous A.I. Chip Policy

National security shouldn’t ever have a price.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/opinion/trump-ai-chips-nvidia-china.html?unlocked_article_code=1.9k8.dXkc.IaKn9x_yZAva <https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/opinion/trump-ai-chips-nvidia-china.html?unlocked_article_code=1.9k8.dXkc.IaKn9x_yZAva&smid=em-share> &smid=em-share

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ja, the whole thing is paradoxical.  

 

It is very clear the USA and China are coming into armed conflict at some point.  The Chinese do stuff like producing neodymium at a loss.  This prevents the refineries at Mountain Pass from cranking up and operating at a profit.  That refinery took on a bunch of contracts in 2022 when the spot price of neodymium spiked way up, so they have the money to dust off their refining equipment, but the Nd spot price went back down to normal:

 

https://www.dailymetalprice.com/metalpricecharts.php?c=nd <https://www.dailymetalprice.com/metalpricecharts.php?c=nd&u=lb&d=2400#google_vignette> &u=lb&d=2400#google_vignette

 

This means Mountain Pass probably didn’t sell any more futures contracts for Nd, but that mine with the newly installed refineries can extract other materials from that ore, the other rare earths and some silver, which is the red hot investment element these days, followed by gold.

 

But having big old China over there with their Nd refinery capacity limits US investors’ willingness to drop much money into domestic production of the stuff.  They stockpile some then move on.

 

The paradox in selling advanced Nvidia processors to a future enemy is that it can be seen as the US answer to China’s overbuilt rare earth refinery capability in a way.  That the USA can produce more advanced processors at a lower cost than China is known.  If the USA sells them to China, they can of course use them in their weapons development, but… they are less likely to develop their own advanced microprocessors.  When faster, better, cheaper processors are available from the yanks, they just buy those, while their smartest people slip away to Taiwan then on over on the next plane to America, where the yanks welcome them.  Then they go to work for Nvidia, but instead of stealing a bunch of intellectual property and sneaking back to commieland, they just accidentally stay here, marry a local, bear children and live the California life.  Result, they don’t develop their own commie chips, for they cannot: their smartest brains left the building.  

 

Selling a tool of this power to your own enemy seems wrong, but in a way it might be just the thing.  It attracts their smartest people to come join the good guys.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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