Four issues of this publication have rested on one number. It is time to admit that nobody, including the industry that reports it, can say what it means.
What interests me most is that the unreliable shipment numbers may still reveal something important.
They may not measure commercial adoption so much as how widely China has distributed an unfinished technology across universities, municipal programs, research centers, and industrial sites.
That process is wasteful, but it also spreads the work of finding where the technology fails and what must be solved next. The numbers may be describing not just the market, but China’s development method.
What interests me most is that the unreliable shipment numbers may still reveal something important.
They may not measure commercial adoption so much as how widely China has distributed an unfinished technology across universities, municipal programs, research centers, and industrial sites.
That process is wasteful, but it also spreads the work of finding where the technology fails and what must be solved next. The numbers may be describing not just the market, but China’s development method.
Thanks for the insightful comments, Todd. That’s a really great point!