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> CUDA can now easily compile it to target NVIDA and AMD GPUs, as well as x86-64 CPUs Are these solutions "legal"? I.e. is there a risk NVIDIA can crack down
by skohan 7y ago
> CUDA can now easily compile it to target NVIDA and AMD GPUs, as well as x86-64 CPUs
Are these solutions "legal"? I.e. is there a risk NVIDIA can crack down on tools like this from an IP standpoint if they want to at some point in the future?
- fluffything 7y agoIANAL, but: - NVIDIA themselves ship multiple CUDA to multi-core x86-64 compilers for different programming languages CUDA C/C++/Fortran - AMD has been shiping hip for a while, advertising it as production ready, without any lawsuits (AFAIK). hip is also being used in production. - LLVM and clang have had open-source CUDA (and PTX) support for years, and nvidia have not enforced any kind of patents there.
- pjmlp 7y agoThat clang/LLVM support was contributed by NVidia.
- fluffything 7y agoI think it was contributed by Google.
- rrss 7y agoThe original version of the NVPTX backend was contributed by nvidia, but iiuc they abandoned it afterwards and I think all the work on it since then has been by Google.
- adev_ 7y ago> AMD has been shiping hip for a while, advertising it as production ready, without any lawsuits (AFAIK). hip is also being used in production. Hip is not Cuda and even remove most mention if cuda from its API. It just mimic cuda API to try to provide compatibility. And the result is that almost nobody use it today.
- skohan 7y agoHow do people do GPGPU on AMD today? Because I thought AMD has a huge cloud GPU market share for things like ML
- adev_ 7y ago> How do people do GPGPU on AMD today? Because I thought AMD has a huge cloud GPU market share for things like ML ROCm and HIP [^1] or OpenCL. OpenCL is the hated solution of GPGPU. It is low level, incomplete and definitively not with a mature ecosystem of tools like Cuda. But it is currently the only one existing if you want your program to run on something else than Nvidia GPU ( Meaning AMD, Intel, phone GPUs or FPGA accelerators). [^1] https://github.com/ROCmSoftwarePlatform/ https://github.com/ROCmSoftwarePlatform/
- pjmlp 7y agoAndroid phone GPUs only do Renderscript, OpenCL is not officially supported on Android.
- rrss 7y agoAMD has a tiny market share in the cloud GPU market. AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure all have compute instances with NVIDIA GPUs, and I don't think any with AMD GPUs (IIRC Azure maybe has windows instances with AMD GPUs for graphics). According to https://www.techquila.co.in/nvidia-cloud-ai-gpu-share/ https://www.techquila.co.in/nvidia-cloud-ai-gpu-share/, AMD is at ~1%.
- Bayart 7y agoCan you patent a formal language or API calls ? That's a real question. I'm sure NVIDIA IP includes the CUDA trademark, their own compilers, SDKs and so on... but the language itself ?
- raphlinus 7y agoIt's a gray area and currently being litigated. If Oracle prevails, then NVidia absolutely would be in a position to shut down compatible implementations of CUDA, or dictate the terms under which they might or might not be able to continue to exist. Using open standards avoids this risk, though some companies are unwilling to work with Khronos, citing (not publicly detailed) legal concerns. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_v._Oracle_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_v._Oracle_America