China has just launched a hypersonic missle that orbited the Earth before plunging through the atmosphere toward a target. The fact that such a missle can essentially come straight down out of the sky renders our radar system useless. And the missile can shift course, making it further impossible to defend against. In effect, the Chinese have just altered the military balance of power between it and the world.
Now I see this article from the Washington Post in Sinocism, a daily newsletter I subscribe to. It’s from April but it explains how U.S. technology was used. It’s just outrageous that our most sophisticated semiconductor companies are selling to China’s military for projects such as this one. Here’s the article:
April 2021 – China builds advanced weapons systems using American technology – The Washington Post
In a secretive military facility in southwest China, a supercomputer whirs away, simulating the heat and drag on hypersonic vehicles speeding through the atmosphere — missiles that could one day be aimed at a U.S. aircraft carrier or Taiwan, according to former U.S. officials and Western analysts.
The computer is powered by tiny chips designed by a Chinese firm called Phytium Technology using American software and built in the world’s most advanced chip factory in Taiwan, which hums with American precision machinery, say the analysts.
Phytium portrays itself as a commercial company aspiring to become a global chip giant like Intel. It does not publicize its connections to the research arms of the People’s Liberation Army…
One Silicon Valley company that counts Phytium as a customer is Cadence Design Systems, which gave an award to Phytium at a 2018 conference for presenting the “best paper” on how to use its software for high-performance chip applications. Another is Synopsys, headquartered eight miles from Cadence in San Jose, Calif…
Phytium’s microprocessors are produced at gleaming factories outside Taipei by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company
