Turkish Industry, Science and Technology

[Adıvar]

Dornase Alpha is not the name of drug but an active substance in the medicine, as i know.

Prof. said they started working on the project a month ago.

Whatever.. We will have a medicine which is our own in the end and cure people...

 

[Saithan]

Post in the corona thread guys, don’t spread it around

 

[GlobalMillitary96]

Post in the corona thread guys, don’t spread it around

Don't spread it around

 

[wulff]

impossible

Can you tell us why you think it is impossible? Actually none of the 5 technologies fall under export control laws. It is easier to develop them domestically than for example most of the technologies Aselsan and Roketsan are pursuing.

In fact, the first 3 are basically systems software and there is an huge amount of published research and open source code that can be used as a starting point. You only need manpower, no specialized equipment and very little money. The work can even be done entirely at university labs, or even through a group of of volunteers. You can develop stuff that the entire defence industry would use, even though it may not be competitive with windows/linux.

For #4, Aselsan and another of their joint ventures i believe have already developed a RISC-V based design. They can similarly develop other core hardware devices if they put in enough resources.

The only technology that requires significant R&D is #5. Even here things are easier as this equipment isn't restricted under export control laws. Patent protection is there, yes, so you have to develop your own processes. But there is a huge commercial market and the machines can be used by both defence and commercial manufacturers.

 

[Saithan]

I think if we had a "turkish" laptop where all the mentioned components were built/created in Turkey we'd have a reason to continue developing it. e.g. if we had bought IBM T-series (now LENOVO) we could have said reason to continue developing and such. But we were not there yet, and considering the hardware market the rivals it's difficult to even get into the market unless you are guarenteed customers, e.g. municipalities/government and such, then you'd have to invest a lot in R&D to improve to rival global giants.

Just my opinion, that we need something to use it for otherwise the knowledge and knowhow won't be polished.

 

[ÇölKaplanı]

A must read

Türk Savunma Sanayiinin Dönüşümü

 

[renegademaster]

I think if we had a "turkish" laptop where all the mentioned components were built/created in Turkey we'd have a reason to continue developing it. e.g. if we had bought IBM T-series (now LENOVO) we could have said reason to continue developing and such. But we were not there yet, and considering the hardware market the rivals it's difficult to even get into the market unless you are guarenteed customers, e.g. municipalities/government and such, then you'd have to invest a lot in R&D to improve to rival global giants.

Just my opinion, that we need something to use it for otherwise the knowledge and knowhow won't be polished.

The reason global brands are able to sell the gaming laptop you have for $2600 and not $26000 is because of their high number of sales and not just the government offices/municipalities. That way they can reduce unit cost of manufacturing.

It's called economies of scale.

There's also something else called "comparative advantage". It's not always good to try to manufacture everything yourself. We live in the era of globalism and some countries provide the tech goods while others provide services. Turkey is good in services but not a competitor in high tech. Sure, Casper and Vestel make PCs and smart phones but even the president uses i-phone..

It could happen if Turkey had produced a lot of graduates in high-tech sector and reduced cost of manufacturing (or take it to China and Taiwan like everyone else). But it's a hard sell. Brands like HP, Asus, Dell, Lenovo sells to the entire world.

 

[Saithan]

The reason global brands are able to sell the gaming laptop you have for $2600 and not $26000 is because of their high number of sales and not just the government offices/municipalities. That way they can reduce unit cost of manufacturing.

It's called economies of scale.

There's also something else called "comparative advantage". It's not always good to try to manufacture everything yourself. We live in the era of globalism and some countries provide the tech goods while others provide services. Turkey is good in services but not a competitor in high tech. Sure, Casper and Vestel make PCs and smart phones but even the president uses i-phone..

It could happen if Turkey had produced a lot of graduates in high-tech sector and reduced cost of manufacturing (or take it to China and Taiwan like everyone else). But it's a hard sell. Brands like HP, Asus, Dell, Lenovo sells to the entire world.

Well my point was critical technology needed for developing our defence industry should be produced inhouse, otherwise we can't even dream of accomplishing more complicated projects.

Just look at how much the price of missiles dropped once Turkey became able to produce them ourselves. If you give up this knowhow and become dependant on foreign countries again the same shit will happen, this is one of the reason you should always keep your own domestic production alive.

 

[mehmeTcc]

Why would anybody invest in a market that is highly saturated as consumer electronics? We missed the train in terms of integrated circuits and consumer-driven OEM production a long time ago. A country with limited resources like ours should focus more on upcoming technologies.

Several fields come to my mind, like nanotechnology, data science, biotech and Internet of Things.

 

[himate]

Why would anybody invest in a market that is highly saturated as consumer electronics? We missed the train in terms of integrated circuits and consumer-driven OEM production a long time ago. A country with limited resources like ours should focus more on upcoming technologies.

Several fields come to my mind, like nanotechnology, data science, biotech and Internet of Things.

With mindset like this no wonder Turkey is behind in alot of important industries. Turkey should invest into everything including electronics and semiconductors. Countries like South Korea and japan are where they are today is because of electronic and now you can see china following suit and becoming successful.

 

[renegademaster]

With mindset like this no wonder Turkey is behind in alot of important industries. Turkey should invest into everything including electronics and semiconductors. Countries like South Korea and japan are where they are today is because of electronic and now you can see china following suit and becoming successful.

Countries like South Korea, Japan and Germany are subservient to the US and are defended by the US military. In exchange, the US and allied countries like UK, France have allowed them to become and invested shit ton of billions of dollars in several industries to make such countries hubs of production (that and their people are very well educated and disciplined and hardworking). Same applies to Taiwan and Hongkong also flourished under British rule and same has happened to Singapore when they attracted foreign investment instead of investing in military like their neighbor Malaysia. (which made Singapore a home to multinational conglomorates and the country is basically protected by their presence and investment in the country). But their brands are still manufactured in China, Taiwan and Vietnam for cents on the dollar, something which Turkey can not compete with.

That's what Turkey could've done after becoming a NATO member: leave the country's defense to the US for 50 years and invest all resources into building industries like high tech products, invest in education and human capital, not only that but also arts and other sciences. Then Turkey could've been like Korea today. Turkey fought in a war which saw Korea split in two and today Turkey is far behind Korea, especially so in human capital.

I can see a lot of people here ignore the economic side of things. Dollar is almost 7 liras and after the pandemic we'll probably see a lot of bankruptcies in Turkey. Turkey has ambitions, that's good, but so little economic resources for everything. That's why alliances and friendships are important, especially for countries like Turkey. Even the US gets all his power from alliances. And it's cheap.

Another question: how many of you own Casper Laptops or Vestel Smartphones?

Turkish military I believe already nationalized her own operating systems and software so there's no problem with that. That's how it should be anyway.

Well my point was critical technology needed for developing our defence industry should be produced inhouse, otherwise we can't even dream of accomplishing more complicated projects.

Just look at how much the price of missiles dropped once Turkey became able to produce them ourselves. If you give up this knowhow and become dependant on foreign countries again the same shit will happen, this is one of the reason you should always keep your own domestic production alive.

I agree on certain things. Missiles are cheap and easy to make, so are drones. I don't agree on certain things like 5th generation stealth aircraft or trying to compete against global brands in computers if you're trying to do it with domestic production. Domestic production is expensive in Turkey, global brands get their manufacture in China, Vietnam or Taiwan, even Samsung is manufacturing 50 percent of its mobile phones in Vietnam and only 8 percent in Korea. It's cents on the dollar over there for labor costs. Turkey can't compete with those countries in labor costs anymore, it's not the 80s or 90s anymore. Would you work for 500 liras a month? How about 300?

That will change, however, as more and more production becomes automated, and all brands will take their production home eventually, so Turkish companies could invest in robotics and AI and make domestic production possible with low cost.

 

[Saithan]

Countries like South Korea, Japan and Germany are subservient to the US and are defended by the US military. In exchange, the US and allied countries like UK, France have allowed them to become and invested shit ton of billions of dollars in several industries to make such countries hubs of production (that and their people are very well educated and disciplined and hardworking). Same applies to Taiwan and Hongkong also flourished under British rule and same has happened to Singapore when they attracted foreign investment instead of investing in military like their neighbor Malaysia. (which made Singapore a home to multinational conglomorates and the country is basically protected by their presence and investment in the country). But their brands are still manufactured in China, Taiwan and Vietnam for cents on the dollar, something which Turkey can not compete with.

That's what Turkey could've done after becoming a NATO member: leave the country's defense to the US for 50 years and invest all resources into building industries like high tech products, invest in education and human capital, not only that but also arts and other sciences. Then Turkey could've been like Korea today. Turkey fought in a war which saw Korea split in two and today Turkey is far behind Korea, especially so in human capital.

I can see a lot of people here ignore the economic side of things. Dollar is almost 7 liras and after the pandemic we'll probably see a lot of bankruptcies in Turkey. Turkey has ambitions, that's good, but so little economic resources for everything. That's why alliances and friendships are important, especially for countries like Turkey. Even the US gets all his power from alliances. And it's cheap.

Another question: how many of you own Casper Laptops or Vestel Smartphones?

Turkish military I believe already nationalized her own operating systems and software so there's no problem with that. That's how it should be anyway.



I agree on certain things. Missiles are cheap and easy to make, so are drones. I don't agree on certain things like 5th generation stealth aircraft or trying to compete against global brands in computers if you're trying to do it with domestic production. Domestic production is expensive in Turkey, global brands get their manufacture in China, Vietnam or Taiwan, even Samsung is manufacturing 50 percent of its mobile phones in Vietnam and only 8 percent in Korea. It's cents on the dollar over there for labor costs. Turkey can't compete with those countries in labor costs anymore, it's not the 80s or 90s anymore. Would you work for 500 liras a month? How about 300?

That will change, however, as more and more production becomes automated, and all brands will take their production home eventually, so Turkish companies could invest in robotics and AI and make domestic production possible with low cost.

I definitely agree that we shouldn't be spending money on projects that are too costly without any proven return in investment, such as the Canal istanbul project. With regard to 5th gen, we need to aim high to keep our engineers working and not lose the knowledge gained, so in a way I see it as a necessary investment. I read an article recently that Japan developed a 5th gen airplane just to do it and to keep their highly brainy engineers from leaving, and they'll keep doing these projects to not lose the precious knowledge gained. Even though the cost was insane.

We should focus on our economy and sustainability as you say (that is also what Bülent Ecevit fought for), and the inflation is pretty bad has always been under AKP and RTE because they're pushing for development in return for insane debts. An economy driven by debt will only give headaches. So how do we achive soft landing, and debt free. It pretty much depends on politicians changing politics, but I don't see that happening with RTE and AKP because it's like a snowball keep it rolling or you'll have massive problems. While they hope for a miracle called oil or gas.

Problem is this debt driven growth keeps a lot of people in jobs, so once they try to do something sustainable the unemployment with explode even further.

EDIT: 25% of GDP comes from Istanbul, maybe it's not entirely correct but the indication of istanbuls value should not be lost. https://theconversation.com/turkey-...g-despite-worsening-coronavirus-crisis-135370

 

[mehmeTcc]

Countries like South Korea and Japan started the semiconductors game at least 30 years ago. Heck, the Japanese were the inventors of silicone based semiconductors. Notice that when these people started there were only two Computer Engineering programs in Turkey. That train is long gone.

The 5G is an exemplary case of how countries like ours can produce value from newer technologies. Erdal Arıkan, who invented polar codes which ultimately led to the widespread adoption of 5G, sold his patents for 964 million dollars recently. Not only that, I for one, being a student of his, know that he is also working with Aselsan to produce yerli ve milli 5G installations. Now notice that this is a single paper, a single research project that has contributed almost 1 billion dollars to the Turkish economy.

Nowadays I work as an R&D engineer in an IoT company and during my free time I am trying to establish a project in the same field to apply for governmental research grants. Now there are lots of subfields regarding IoT, like smart cities, smart home applications, factory automation, logistics automation etc. Even for a simple application layer protocol like MQTT there are limitless commercial possibilities, and the best of it is there are simply no competitors since most of the companies are either investing recently on the subject or never heard of such a technology. Now why would anybody invest in a technology like integrated circuits where the market is highly saturated and the RoI is low, instead of newer technologies like I described above?

Turkish military I believe already nationalized her own operating systems and software so there's no problem with that. That's how it should be anyway.

This is wrong. TSK uses dual-booted computers that can run both Windows and Linux at the same time. Users mostly use Windows though, Pardus Linux shipped with these computers are there mostly for cosmetic purposes.

That being said though, there is a real demand for Real-time Operating Systems in Turkey. These kinds of OSes have applications ranging from defense industry product to automobiles. I believe there were an attempt to develop them in-house in Tübitak, but I don't know whether there are plans for commercializing such a system.

This is actually a great start-up idea.

 

[Saithan]

I’ll give an example of why it’s important to be able to produce things in-house.

here in Denmark the government institute for serum had sold off their factory, so they’re unable to produce serums en mass. Likewise a local company had moved all their production to China so no N95 masks were being produced in Denmark, but because they still had the old machines in the production line. They were able to start producing masks again... after 10+ years. The company produces around 4 million masks initially, but will get the amount up as they tweak these processes.

now there is nothing wrong pursuing all the wonderful things yet to be discovered, but there is a necessity related to being able to be produce here things in-house.

 

[mehmeTcc]

I’ll give an example of why it’s important to be able to produce things in-house.

here in Denmark the government institute for serum had sold off their factory, so they’re unable to produce serums en mass. Likewise a local company had moved all their production to China so no N95 masks were being produced in Denmark, but because they still had the old machines in the production line. They were able to start producing masks again... after 10+ years. The company produces around 4 million masks initially, but will get the amount up as they tweak these processes.

now there is nothing wrong pursuing all the wonderful things yet to be discovered, but there is a necessity related to being able to be produce here things in-house.

OK, that is a valid argument but also bear in mind that some of the "mission critical" components in the area of semiconductor-like technologies are already being produced in Turkey, even if there is a bit of foreign collaboration. If you are interested about these kind of things, check out Mikronano's or Siemens Turkey's work. They are subcontractors for many of Aselsan's projects.

I should also add that this is a country with limited resources and almost no foreign currency rests in her treasury, hence my argument above about how newer technologies offer better return of investment with lower infrastructure costs.

How can we invest in everything?