News on China's scientific and technological development.
- Thread starter Quickie
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Quantum computing thus far seems to be a bust in terms of practical applications. Quantum communications has limited uses but at least it has actual viable applications.
Nuclear fusion is another bust. The latest improvements in superconductors help make it more viable, see what MIT has been doing for example, but were are still far from something which could be commercialized and economical. It is much better to continue investments into nuclear fission like the current high temperature gas reactor program.
The Chinese government might be jumping the gun here by investing into fringe areas with little benefit. China is still behind in areas like semiconductors and aerospace. Money would be much better spent there.
If I was head of China's technological policy I would start a 450mm wafer program. That would reduce per chip costs making China's semiconductors more cost effective versus the West while not needing significant new technology to be developed. At the same time I would try to put EUV into production and make prototypes for beyond EUV technology. I would give more emphasis to the aviation engine program. Start working on a more modern replacement for the ARJ-21. Mid life upgrade for the C919. And continue the C929.
Nuclear fusion is another bust. The latest improvements in superconductors help make it more viable, see what MIT has been doing for example, but were are still far from something which could be commercialized and economical. It is much better to continue investments into nuclear fission like the current high temperature gas reactor program.
The Chinese government might be jumping the gun here by investing into fringe areas with little benefit. China is still behind in areas like semiconductors and aerospace. Money would be much better spent there.
If I was head of China's technological policy I would start a 450mm wafer program. That would reduce per chip costs making China's semiconductors more cost effective versus the West while not needing significant new technology to be developed. At the same time I would try to put EUV into production and make prototypes for beyond EUV technology. I would give more emphasis to the aviation engine program. Start working on a more modern replacement for the ARJ-21. Mid life upgrade for the C919. And continue the C929.
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agreed with you here ..
i don't think so, i need to tell how much money Chinese central/local governments spending in semiconductor industry ..
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COMAC is state-owned .. right
C929 program has officially approved. C919 smaller and large variants has approved as well. COMAC also owned 50 percent AECC Shanghai group. responsible of CJ-1000/CJ-2000 programs..
AECC Shanghai raised 5.9 Billion RMB investment alone in 2023 year.. The current overall valuation exceed 30 Billion Yuan.. total assets were at 12.5 Billion RMB
AECC also planning to launch IPO in Shanghai stock exchange..
i have post this information in Engine thread ..in November, 2023. a meeting was held in Shanghai between COMAC , local government and AECC head. they have taken big decisions. and the press release was really interesting.
my old post .. see this
as you see, a lot money is been investing in Civil aviation/aero engine industry ..
just want to point something out here.
In this example, XCMG's new plant can produce scissor truck every 6 minutes and 1-arm aerial lift every 10 minutes. But in reality, it just produced 500 last month. A lot of these Chinese factories can produce a much higher rate if demand calls for it and supply chin can keep up. So in war time economy, people might be shocked by just how many sheer munitions Chinese factories can output
I have a strong feeling that china will be the first country to achieve the nuclear fusion milestone
Does it really matter who is the first or the second or the third to achieve that milestone?
In the real world what matters is who is going to apply nuclear fusion first in their economy. And as we all know, China might not always be the first in novel research, but in mass application of said research, it's almost always the first by a wide margin..
Gonna to be honest with you, nuclear fusion will likely take another century to take off. The issue is cost, we already have basically infinite gigawatt power generation via nuclear fission. The issue is that even in China, a gigawatt nuclear fission reactor takes 5-7 years and costs billions. More like 10-15 years and 10-20 billion in western countries. That's why they are losing out to fossil fuels and renewables. Now consider how insanely expensive the first few fusion reactors will be. And same thing, they will have to complete with renewables and 4th gen nuclear. Would you pay 1 billion for a gigawatt fission reactor that will take 4 year to build, or a commercial fusion reactor that will take 50 billion and take 15 years to build? And you need to build hundreds of them to power a major economy.
Which is not to say that China shouldn't invest in nuclear fusion of course. It just for the PR move of "we did it first". But I have serious doubts on it's future as a core energy source.
Honestly yes. See my comment above. Fusion is gonna be a PR move more then anything else. And China needs that PR boost. For an country extremely reliance on exports, it needs to make "made in China" prestigious as possible. Just look at the Moon landings, practically it's useless, but America has clung to it's act for decades. Russia always had a massively more successful PR machine than China and it worked wonders for them.
supercat
Major
After glancing at the names on the paper/article, I think your post should read:
"A team of Chinese
Design and Development of Miniaturized Process Mass Spectrometer
A chip-level ion source structure with a triode-type field emitter is designed for the micro mass spectrometer of spacecraft, which consists of a gas ionization by electron impact and an ion extraction section. The structure of the ion source is composed of five layers of electrodes. A chip-level ion source prototype was prepared using MEMS technology, and the electron flow, ion flow and stability were tested. The results show that the chip-level ion source can generate an electron current of over 0.357 mA, and the received ion current can reach 527 pA, meeting the functional requirements of the ion source for micro mass spectrometers in space exploration missions.