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How many people/companies did it take to build GPUs? A lot of people, to be sure, but as a fraction of all software engineers, that number is incredibly tiny.
by eslaught 11y ago
How many people/companies did it take to build GPUs? A lot of people, to be sure, but as a fraction of all software engineers, that number is incredibly tiny.
The vast majority of software engineers---even if we filter to just the set who have actually used GPUs for a project---only know the high-level APIs (OpenGL for graphics, CuDNN for AI, etc.). Fewer engineers are familiar with the more general-purpose APIs (CUDA, OpenCL, etc.), and even fewer still know any of what goes on underneath those layers.
Bottom line: it takes a relatively small community of people to build tools for everyone else to use. People will need to know how to use the highest level of APIs, but most need not understand what goes on underneath that.
- yeukhon 11y agoOr a better way to put it in my own opinion: in the early days of any emerging technology, most of the founding members have little clue what to do except the concepts and ideas, so implementing toolsets which can be used on both quantum computers and non-quantum computers will be a learn-on-job work for most people, leaving a very very very small pools of experts who devoted his/her life to this area.