33 ms·

Well, what are they gonna do about it? Nvidia has the most desirable chips in the world, and their insane prices reflect that. Every hyperscaler is already mas

• Xevion 1y ago
  While I don't dispute that they're objectively the most desirable at the current moment - I do think your comment implies that they deserve it, or that people WANT Nvidia to be the best. It almost sounds like you're cheering on Nvidia, framing it as "everyone else trying to reduce the value of Nvidia", meanwhile they have a long, long history of closed-source drivers, proprietary & patented cost-inflated technology that would be identical if not inferior to alternatives - if it weren't for their market share and vendor lock-in strategies. "Well, what are they gonna do about it?" When dealing with a bully, you go find friends. They're going to fund other chip manufacturers and push for diversity, fund better drivers and compatibility. That's the best possible future anyone could hope for.
  • almostgotcaught 1y ago
    > that would be identical if not inferior to alternatives - if it weren't for their market share and vendor lock-in strategies. 1. "Identical if not for market share" is a complete contradiction when what we're talking about is the network effect of CUDA 2. What vendor lock in? What are you talking about? They have a software and compiler stack that works with their chips. How is that lock in, that's literally just their product offering. In fact the truth is you can compile CUDA for AMD (using hipify) and guess what - the result sucks because AMD isn't a comparable alternative!
    • Ygg2 1y ago
      > In fact the truth is you can compile CUDA for AMD (using hipify) You can compile x64 to ARM and performance tanks. Does this means ARM isn't a comparable alternative to x64? It just means their software works badly with said architecture. Could be that AMD acceleration is horrible (but then the FSR would be worse) or it could be that it's just different, or the translation layer is bad.
      • jsosshbfn 1y ago
        Yea but you're comparing a mid-level api to an architecture. It's just a category error. It's like saying C is just a PDP frontend.
      • almostgotcaught 1y ago
        > or the translation layer is bad There's no translation layer - you don't understand how/what hipify and CUDA are. CUDA is a C/C++ extension and it connotes APIs. 90% of CUDA kernel code (ie the stuff that actually runs on the SMs) does compile for AMD without any changes (intrinsics diff). hipify goes the extra step of remaining APIs to their HIP variants. Again, all of this is to say there's no vendor lockin like clueless whiny people complain and just a superior product.
        • deleted 1y ago
          [deleted]
        • Ygg2 1y ago
          The point was, I don't expect it to work or work smoothly. CUDA was made for Nvidia, same for ROCm on AMD. Comparing CUDA on AMD or ROCm isn't a fair If Nvidia is better at AI tasks and is superior. Great. Maybe they can finally leave GPU field.
          • almostgotcaught 1y ago
            > CUDA was made for Nvidia, same for ROCm on AMD I'm gonna say it again, loud and clear: you don't have any understanding of what you're saying and 90% of the kernel code is exactly the same, transferrable, compilable ie it's just cpp.
  • Dr4kn 1y ago
    I don't think this problem is going to be solved by hyper scalers offering their own accelerators. They probably offer better price to performance, but try to lock you into their ecosystem. With the Nvidia solution you have at least another option. Vendor agnostic, but Nvidia lock in. If most ML startups, one hyper scaler and at best also AMD, would go with one common backend, then it might get enough traction to become *the* standard.
  • _zoltan_ 1y ago
    Ugh, that's such a bad take. why wouldn't you cheer for NVIDIA? They had the discipline, the courage and the long term vision that nobody else did for the last 20 years. Closed source?? Who cares? It's their own products. Vendor lock in? It's their own chips man. You wouldn't expect Nvidia to develop software for AMD chips would you? That would be insane. I would not do that. Their tech is superior to everybody else's and Jensen keeps pulling rabbits out of a hat. I hope they keep going strong for the next decade.
    • Ygg2 1y ago
      > why wouldn't you cheer for NVIDIA? Because they are an amoral mass that seeks to make profit and has turned GPU market into a cluster fuck? > Their tech is superior to everybody Their only saving grace is CUDA, and DLSS, their hardware has been overvalued for quite some time.
      • winterbloom 1y ago
        Couldn't you replace Nvidia with apple here They have a nice software stack but the hardware is overvalued
        • amarcheschi 1y ago
          We can also not cheer about apple imho I mean, we could probably not cheer about big techs that routinely do shady things - or straight illegal things - for their own profit knowing they won't face consequences - or very light ones
        • Ygg2 1y ago
          Mostly. I'm not an Apple fan either. To be fair to Apple their hardware was always overpriced. Their deal is hardware + software combo.
          • mustyoshi 1y ago
            Arguably, CUDA is the current best in class software for it's market.
• chii 1y ago
  > Nvidia’s true moat is the CUDA ecosystem. it is true, but also not. nvidia is certainly producing a chip that nobody else can replicate (unless they're the likes of google, and even they are not interested in doing so). The CUDA moat is the same type of moat as intel's x86 instruction set. Plenty of existing programs/software stack have been written against it, and the cost to migrate away is high. These LLM pipelines are similar, and even more costly to migrate away. But because LLM is still immature right now (it's only been approx. 3 yrs!), there's still room to move the instruction set. And middleware libraries can help (pytorch, for example, has more than just the CUDA backend, even if they're a bit less mature). The real moat that nvidia has is their hardware capability, and CUDA is the disguised moat.
  • rvnx 1y ago
    Google is doing the TPUs, isn’t it exactly for that ?
    • chii 1y ago
      iirc, google's stuff is only for google, and they're not selling it as as something that others can buy. I suppose this can change.
  • tester756 1y ago
    >it is true, but also not. nvidia is certainly producing a chip that nobody else can replicate AMD, Intel?
    • _zoltan_ 1y ago
      NVLink says hello. Then rack scale NVLink says hello... Nobody can touch it. Then that's just the hardware. The software is so much better on Nvidia. The width and breadth of their offering is great and nobody is even close.
      • tester756 1y ago
        UALink? >Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink) is an open specification for a die-to-die interconnect and serial bus between AI accelerators. It is co-developed by Alibaba, AMD, Apple, Astera Labs,[1] AWS, Cisco, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Meta, Microsoft and Synopsys.[2]
• mattlondon 1y ago
  Ask Google: TPUs.
• rwmj 1y ago
  [Genuine question!] Does NVidia have patents etc on CUDA that prevent a competitor from reverse engineering and producing a compatible clone, or is it just that competitors are incompetent (hey AMD)? Or is it that the task is enormous and rapidly changing, like you have to be bug-for-bug compatible with a large, ill-documented API (the Microsoft Windows moat)?
  • paulryanrogers 1y ago
    Competitors have tried. It's just chasing a moving target, so you're guaranteed to be behind and always playing catch-up.
    • imtringued 1y ago
      Tenstorrent is doing pretty well software wise.
• imtringued 1y ago
  Google has already mostly exited the CUDA and Nvidia ecosystem. They only offer it for their customers at this point.
• roenxi 1y ago
  > Well, what are they gonna do about it? Ironically, the most effective thing they can do is probably haul up the AMD rep and yell at them.