Nvidia has produced the first Blackwell wafer on US soil

(xda-developers.com)

72 points | by kristianp 4 hours ago ago

20 comments

  • contrarian1234 an hour ago

    Does anyone have any insight on how they make it economically viable?

    US salaries are astronomically high compared to the rest of the world. In the tech sector that's doubly so. Everything is incredibly expensive there. Is this basically a small facility to keep some politicians happy?

    Or is it used to provide some supply military gear at 50x the price?

    Will it get shut down in a few years once everyone forgets about it?

    • adgjlsfhk1 an hour ago

      semi manufacturing is highly automated, and not much of the cost is labor.

  • roboror 3 hours ago

    This is the culmination of years of work, not months, as the article suggests. I prefer the actual press release.

  • xnx 2 hours ago
  • echelon 2 hours ago

    This is incredible news!

    I never thought this would happen, or that if it did, we'd be a few generations behind.

    Now let's onshore or friendshore everything else we need! Rare earths, mid-tier processors, chemical precursors, pharmaceuticals, steel, robotics/mechatronics, solar, drones, ...

    Why even stop there? Kill the Jones Act, get back to building naval drones and ships of all kinds, ...

    • jrk 2 hours ago

      It is a few generations behind: Blackwell is still on N4, which is an N5 variant. Meanwhile TSMC has been shipping N3 family processes in large volume products (Apple) for more than 2 years already, and is starting to ramp the next major node family (N2) for Apple et al. next year.

      NVIDIA has often lagged on process, since they drive such large dies, but having the first major project demo wafer on N4 now is literally 2 generations behind Taiwan.

      • AlotOfReading 19 minutes ago

        It's a couple process generations behind, but Blackwell is literally nvidia's most current generation. They don't ship N3 until the next generation.

        When was the last time current gen, competitive GPUs were fabbed outside Asia?

    • contrarian1234 an hour ago

      If only Kim Il Sung were still alive to hear you

  • andrewstuart an hour ago

    Silicon wafers should be kept clean and away from soil.

    • rich_sasha 12 minutes ago

      Surely US soil is fine..? Best, most free and definitely most democratic soil in the world.

    • imdsm 14 minutes ago

      I prefer mine with milk

  • Krasnol an hour ago

    Meanwhile the rest of the world:

    "Wow...great. Moved from one unstable part of the planet to another..."

  • aiauthoritydev 2 hours ago

    Wow. This is a big deal. I had placed a bet that this will never work out and the folks on the ground thought the same too. This probably is going to be the lasting legacy of Biden administration.

  • ofrzeta an hour ago

    So "This is the vision of President Trump of reindustrialization" but it's been in the works for "a few short years"?

    • margalabargala an hour ago

      Well yeah, but the current administration hates the prior administration and loves having its ass kissed.

      If they credited Biden, they would get their funding pulled, and possibly some ICE folks to black bag employees on their way in to let the courts sort out later.

      Or they blow hot air up Trump's butt and make him feel like a big man and they get more funding without getting harrassed.

      Obvious choice to make.

  • dialogbox 2 hours ago

    Next step would be the king of US destroy Taiwan and owns the whole nvidia production.