| ▲ | tdeck 5 hours ago |
| Why are all the comments here so weird? It's like people saw (but didn't read) an article entitled "Man Opens a Taqueria in his Hometown" and the only responses are 1) Why didn't he open it in my hometown? This location isn't convenient for me. 2) Wouldn't it be better for someone else to open a taqueria instead? My cousin is looking for work. Shouldn't we be putting resources into helping him open a restaurant instead? It's like people hear "X in Asian country" and all they can think about is their own geopolitical narrative fed to them by the US state department. Obviously Japan is going to want to develop lucrative manufacturing... within Japan. |
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| ▲ | indoordin0saur 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I'll try and add something positive: Hokkaido seems like a great place to relocate and start a life for young aspiring workers. Homes are larger and quality of life has some advantages over the more densely populated parts of Japan. It's also very unique in terms of climate and geography: very heavy snows and mountains means there's limitless adventure for skiers and snowboarders. Yet, despite the snowy winters the winter isn't as brutally cold as you might think and its not so long as what you see in a place like Canada. Spring comes quickly and the summers are long, warm and pleasant so there's plenty of time to take advantage of the beaches and beautiful forests. And about those forests, one other unique thing about Hokkaido is that it's the only place in the world that can rival (or exceed) New England in terms of its brilliance of fall colors. Anyways, just seems like a great place for Japanese workers to relocate and start a family. I guess the only thing missing were the jobs so hopefully these chip fabs fix that. |
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| ▲ | wrp 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I was in Hokkaido many years ago for work and loved it. Compared to the rest of Japan, indoor/outdoor spaces are wider, food is better, and people are friendlier. I never could swing another work visit, so I dream about spending time there in retirement. I could imagine, though, that companies might have trouble attracting quality talent to Hokkaido, because people see more opportunities in the big cities down south. I suppose it's like if you were trying to build a tech hub in Montana. | | |
| ▲ | indoordin0saur an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | It's not landlocked and less isolated than Montana. Montana is beautiful in select parts but it's also a little bleak. Hokkaido is still a lush island and Sapporo is a proper city. I'd say it's more like getting companies to move from SF or LA to Seattle. | |
| ▲ | ghaff an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | The same could probably be said of many areas of the US (or other countries). Good outdoor recreation opportunities, some good local food options, but not a huge number of (local) employment opportunities or the nearby options that density brings. As you say, if you can work remotely, it may be fine but it's a different situation from working in a hub of whatever your specialty is. |
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| ▲ | echelon 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Hokkaido seems like a great place to relocate and start a life for young aspiring workers. I taught English in Tokachi (Obihiro, Makubetsu-cho, Satsunai, Ikeda) a few decades ago and it was absolutely a dream. It's pristine farmland and country filled with crystal clear rivers and surrounded on all sides by snowcapped mountains. Fields that stretch forever. Hot springs. The freshest food. Fishing. Low cost of living. You could look up at night and not only see all the stars, but watch dozens of meteors by the minute during showers. Just Google for photos of Tokachi. It's gorgeous. Everything is so relaxed, it's almost the complete opposite of Tokyo. It's very easy to meet friends. People work hard, but they take time to enjoy life and nature. There are matsuri (festivals) almost twice a month. There are carts with whistles that beckon you to buy hot yellow sweet potatoes. There are fireworks and bonfires and sports and hiking and climbing. You can make an hour long trip to the ocean and see black pebble beaches that look like an alien world. There are more parks than you can imagine. A park on every block. And some of them are huge and feature giant art installations you can climb on. 500-ft working clocks, rolling hills of recycled rubber you can bounce on, tall dinosaurs you can climb. And don't let that lead you to believe there aren't an incredible amount of plants and flora. It's an ecological paradise and was without question the inspiration for Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke. Everyone is so friendly. The store owners know you by name and call to you. The children all want to get their photo taken with a white guy. They're adorable and they want to talk English to you. The old ladies will smile and wave. One time I was at a lake nestled in the mountains, and a guy in his late 40's or early 50's overheard that I lamented not having a camera (pre-smartphone era). He not only spent an hour taking pictures, portraits, etc. for me with his Nikon, but he printed them and sent them to me with a postcard. The teachers at Kohryo High School (which was sadly shut down) even gave me lucky money. Hokkaido is a magical place. | | |
| ▲ | an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | inglor_cz an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Your description makes me wonder how Southern Sachalin would look like today if it didn't fall to the Soviets in 1945. |
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| ▲ | fngjdflmdflg 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Because commenters outside Japan may end up buying products containing chips made in Japan. If it was built in let's say France people would be thinking less about potential invasions. Just as "obviously Japan is going to want to develop lucrative manufacturing within Japan," obviously people outside of Japan are going to want manufacturing that is not liable to be shut down or taken over in some way. Not that I think Japan and China will actually go to war any time soon myself. >geopolitical narrative fed to them by the US state department Just this week Japan and China have been getting into a fight over the current PM's comments over Taiwan. China has canceled some flights to Japan and complained to the UN, announcing it will defend itself from Japan.[0][1] I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here. Are you saying major disputes between China and Japan don't exist and are invented by the US state department? Or that thinking about it in this context is the result of the commenters being fed by the US state department? [0] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3333992/china-blasts... [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-takes-spat-with-ja... |
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| ▲ | pyrale an hour ago | parent [-] | | Imagine HN was Japanese and everyone was talking about how the US was threatening to invade Greenland on a topic about a new plant in Montana. | | |
| ▲ | fngjdflmdflg 28 minutes ago | parent [-] | | More like a new plant in Iceland, after the PM of Iceland said any attack on Greenland would be a survival-threatening situation for Iceland. To be clear I think the comments about "geopolitical stability" or whatever term we use are not as interesting as new chip plants itself. Or at least they are a bit tired by now. I also wish Japan the best and I think they are fully capable of building such a factory and I hope they do so. But to claim that the geopolitical considerations are invented is wrong. And in fact one of the reasons the Japanese government is investing in local fabs to begin with is due to national security, as mentioned in the article: >Securing control over chip manufacturing is being seen as a national security priority, both in Japan and elsewhere, as recent trade frictions and geopolitical tensions between China and Taiwan raise concerns around the risks of relying on foreign suppliers. So yes, viewing the entire story through a geopolitical lens is understandable. |
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| ▲ | orochimaaru 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The Japanese population trend is unsustainable with long term growth. Maybe they will find people to relocate to satisfy the labor needs? They're notoriously anti-immigration. So unless they have a growing labor pool that can sustain this it's going to be hard. In general, I think the US is looking for alternatives outside of Taiwan to build and operate fabs. Yes, there is a push to get them in the US as well. I'm unsure of why people in the EU seem disconcerted about this. No one is asking them not to create the programs to setup fabs. In fact the US may be thrilled that more allies are putting effort towards creating a supply chain not dependent on China (and Taiwan). |
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| ▲ | mitthrowaway2 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | How much human labor is needed to run a semiconductor fab? This isn't exactly a new shipyard being announced. It seems like the perfect investment for an aging society, and might pay dividends in helping to support the automation of other industries. Japan also already supplies a lot of critical materials for semiconductor fabrication, and has a lot of experience in the sector. They also have a well-developed domestic mechatronics supply chain. It seems like a fairly straightforward thing. | |
| ▲ | alephnerd 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I'm unsure of why people in the EU seem disconcerted about this This is a top-level issue within Europe as well. When the Biden admin began the IRA, IIJA, and CHIPS ACT, France, Germany, and the entire EU began a massive lobbying campaign that verged into a trade war [0][1][2]. I went to school with a number of people who became senior EU and EU member state civil servants and leaders, and my college always hosted European dignitaries on a daily basis (along with a yearly gala/bash where all the major EU and EU member state dignitaries would attend with students and professors [3]), and what I saw was the best and brightest remained in the US, and those who climbed the ladder the fastest in EU and EU member state governments tended to have some familial background or network they heavily leveraged. Or they lucked out and joined the right student union during the right election cycle. There is a chronic lack of vision, and more critically - a chronic disinterest to take hard decisions, because the incentive structures are completely misaligned, with MPs essentially overriding careerist technocrats all for the sake of electoral needs, and unlike Asia, businesses are kept at arms length aside from those that are quasi-state owned like Volkswagen, EDF, or Leonardo SPA. It's almost as if the worst aspects of private sector capitalism morphed with the worst aspects of state capitalism into a legalistic quagmire. [0] - https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/expressions/real-reason... [1] - https://www.atlantik-bruecke.org/en/schadet-der-us-inflation... [2] - https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/how-europe-should-answe... [3] - https://euroconf.eu/ | | |
| ▲ | orochimaaru 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Engineering pay in the EU is bad. If that can be rectified then top talent would not move to the US. Also, US companies actively harness senior individual contributors. I don't think traditional EU companies have that. I think all the talk around regulations, taxes, etc. are a side show. Yes, there could be slightly looser labor laws. But when it comes down to it - money matters and Europe just doesn't pay. The same for Canada. Their universities plodded through AI all through the "AI Winter" and now all their best AI talent works for US companies. There is no single Canadian AI company that's at the level of what their US counterparts are doing. | | |
| ▲ | alephnerd 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Engineering pay in the EU is bad Yes, but it is comparable to the pay received in Asia - especially peer developed countries like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. The issues that have lead to laggard innovation in the EU outside of niches like Biopharma are institutional in nature. > I think all the talk around regulations, taxes, etc. are a side show... I disagree about this as someone who has first hand experience about this w/ regards to the American semiconductor industry. Having a single window to manage disputes, get answers within days instead of months, and tax subsidizes should decisions not be guaranteed in a timely manner help reduce risk for massive capex investments. This is what EU member states like Denmark provide for the biopharma industry, and a similar template could have been used for semiconductors. The issue is, the talent density for large swathes of electronics and computer engineering just doesn't exist in the EU anymore. It can be fixed, but egos need to be set aside and individual European states will have to adopt industrial policy strategies similar to those that developing countries adopted to build their own domestic industries. | | |
| ▲ | jack_tripper 44 minutes ago | parent [-] | | >Yes, but it is comparable to the pay received in Asia - especially peer developed countries like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Not really. If you're an engineer in Asia you're in the top 5% - 10% of local purchasing power. While if you're an engineer in UK, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, etc you're not that wealthy by local standards, you're just average like most other white collar workers, unless you work for a US FANG. >This is what EU member states like Denmark provide for the biopharma industry Not just Denmark, but bio/pharma is a protected and state sponsored industry in most EU countries, unlike software, electronics and electrical engineering which has been treated as a race to the bottom industry. > The issue is, the talent density for large swathes of electronics and computer engineering just doesn't exist in the EU anymore. "Oh no, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions". This is what you get when for the past 20+ years you outsourced your entire industry to Asia for the sake of shareholder returns with no thought of the future. Munich is still a strong tech hub for electronics with Apple, Rhode & Schwarz and others developing RF and semiconductors there, but it can't hold a candle to the sci-fi work being done in SV or even Israel. | | |
| ▲ | alephnerd 28 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > Not really. If you're an engineer in Asia you're in the top 5% - 10% of local purchasing power Nope. You legitimately are not. The top 5-10% of salaries in both SK/JP/TW and Western Europe are primarily the managerial class. And CoL is the same in SK and Japan with much of Western Europe. > you're just average like most other white collar workers, unless you work for a US FANG. Same in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. There's a reason immigration to Western Europe still remains somewhat attractive to Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese nationals to this day - similar salaries, but a better work culture and a stronger social safety net than in much of Asia. > This is what you get when for the past 20+ years you outsourced your entire industry to Asia for the sake of shareholder returns with no thought of the future Europe was never at the forefront of this industry. You can see this even in dated 1990s era references like Red Dwarf. Yes Infineon, ASML, IMEC, and STMicro are supposedly European domiciled, but they were heavily dependent on defense R&D due to semiconductor's dual use implications and all of them largely subsumed American subsidiaries whose leadership became their leadership. As such, these companies haven't been "European" for decades. And this is the crux of the issue - the level of European "exceptionalism" is ridiculous as someone who has been working in this space for decades now, and is a 2nd/3rd (mom's father was a science advisor for dual use electronics in the 60s-80s) generation member of this industry. It was voters like you that justified the peace dividend and penalized Western European governments from attempting to attract industry. Your Eastern European peers in Poland, Czechia, Romania, and Hungary were much more pragmatic. |
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| ▲ | mapt 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Of course. On just one avenue - The Japanese auto industry is huge, and practically everything in a car has some kind of chip in it. The chip industry isn't just CPUs and GPUs, cars use numerous fairly small, primitive chips you could make using 20-year-old process nodes. The "Comparative Advantage" of global trade specialization has its limits. During COVID, international ports shut down frequently and challenged JIT process inventory levels. Raising inventory levels the next time is one way to deal with that, but so is encouraging some minimum level of domestic production. |
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| ▲ | hearsathought 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > all they can think about is their own geopolitical narrative fed to them by the US state department. It's almost like there is a propaganda campaign run all over social meda. Try a fun game, "What's it got to do with china?". Someone or something always tries to tie it to china. |
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| ▲ | carabiner 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Only 11 top level comments right now, and 354 total comments. To see just 3% of comments be top level is something. |
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| ▲ | alephnerd 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Usually around now (6am PST), HN tends to be dominated by Western (and some Eastern) European commentators. I've noticed they tend to have a weird mix of orientalist sentiment along with a "Europe should be able to do this too" sentiment (though in a lot of cases, this is moreso sentiment than reality). |
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| ▲ | gsf_emergency_6 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Let me contribute my Europeanist sentiment by pointing out that the harmonious design of the fab is pure tatemae. The Japanese professional class care fuckall about PFAS and environmental issues have always been low on the list of priorities. Sorry. I love the Hokkaido produce. https://www.americanchemistry.com/chemistry-in-america/chemi... | | |
| ▲ | tdeck 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's certainly something to be concerned about. Even the building where MOS Technology made the 6502 (in Norristown PA) is still a contaminated EPA superfund site. It's an industry with very nasty chemicals and a long history of leaking them. |
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| ▲ | jack_tripper 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >I've noticed they tend to have a weird mix of orientalist sentiment along with a "Europe should be able to do this too". Is it wrong for people in Europe to wish for more cutting-edge/high-margin opportunities in their back yard, especially given the currently atrocious state of the job market? Like you read news how TSMC's cutting edge chips are made in Taiwan and US fabs, then you looks at European fabs and the most cutting edge are 16/12nm. People are seeing the lag with their own eyes and wish for some change. | | |
| ▲ | alephnerd 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Actively disrespecting other countries who worked hard on developing such capabilities and assuming European nations should be on the "big boys table" is what is so jarring. Nothing stopped European nations like Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, France, Italy, etc from continuing to invest in domestic capacity 20 years ago, but most of their IP is now developed in American, Indian, or other Asian subsidiaries or JVs. Just becuase Europe was historically the richest and most powerful continent doesn't mean it will be forever. | | |
| ▲ | jack_tripper 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | >Actively disrespecting other countries who worked hard on developing such capabilities and assuming European nations should be on the "big boys table" is what is so jarring. Maybe there's a misunderstanding here, as there was no disrespecting anyone there with my comment, and I basically agree with your point. That doesn't change that people here want those cutting edge manufacturing and job opportunities the US has. They don't want to be stuck competition with China in commodity widgets like cars or low margin 16nm-65nm microcontrollers. There's a limited market for ASML machines, Siemens gas turbines, and Airbus planes which can't support economic growth of the entire block. >Nothing stopped European nations like from continuing to invest in domestic capacity 20 years ago, but most of their IP is now developed in American, Indian, or other Asian subsidiaries or JVs. They're developed outside of Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, etc since private businesses care most about prioritizing shareholder returns, not national sovereignty. And with Western EUs high labor costs, high taxes, high bureaucracy, strong unions, private companies slowly moved jobs elsewhere where it's cheaper to do business, no unions, less environmentalism, less labor protections, etc. Everyone with basic business know-how could have seen this coming but people still thought they could have their cake and eat it too in the globally cutthroat "free market" economy. Case in point, Nokia just announced it is closing Infinera's Munich office and moving all operations to the US. |
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| ▲ | catigula 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | "Everyone except for me is an -ist. I'm an enlightened non-ist." |
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