I think NVIDIA is in a good spot with its strong software ecosystem, and an army of devtechs. Their architecture is pretty general, so that if the ML algorithms

I think NVIDIA is in a good spot with its strong software ecosystem, and an army of devtechs. Their architecture is pretty general, so that if the ML algorithms change they adapt better than say TPU. I can't find the video of the talk anymore, but late in the process of TPUv3 IIRC Google had to rebalance their hardware to account for new algorithm(change)s. Second, most companies that want to deploy AI cannot afford to build their own custom hardware. Even most carmakers partner with Mobileye or NVIDIA. These big companies also have research teams whose job it is to stay on the ball, research and develop AI techniques and influence how the hardware has to change. As for eating your own dog food, I think NVIDIA does just that with their autonomous driving software stack, robotics kit, devtechs for customers and library optimization/porting. With sufficient focus, funding and execution I think AMD and Intel can reach a similar spot. That said, my hunch is that the legacy and compatibility that the general purpose hardware makers have to carry forward will become a problem. But until that happens (I.e. specialized HW delivers better bang/$) in a 2-10 years, they will likely figure out how to alleviate that and/or develop more specialized hardware.