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I'm not saying throw out the business. But when most of it's revenue is selling chips for devices and data centers, and they are losing revenue despite strongly

I'm not saying throw out the business. But when most of it's revenue is selling chips for devices and data centers, and they are losing revenue despite strongly expanding markets, it's crazy to me that the main innovation investments are to double down on more of what isn't growing. Competing chip makers are showing how to grow on worse process technology by investing in software codesign and vertical codesign -- smarter designs, heavy compilers, heavy ai, heavy solutions, and going hard on the bigger markets within that. Likewise, the Google hw moonshots are more interesting in practice and scale, afaict. Intel knows this, and I'm sure there are clever internal proposals for other orthogonal approaches. But like AMD, even if that stuff is happening, these statements suggest it will be without muscle. This is like a worse repeat of how they approached the rise of mobile devices. I want them to do well, it's frustrating to see them under leverage so much $ and talent year after year when everyone else is doing so well.

fspeech 5y ago
Yes it was a mistake to go after wireless instead of GPGPU, which is an area that they could utilize their existing strength. But it would have taken foresight. Before 2012 Nvidia's gross margin was significantly lower than now. The graphics card business was not attractive. The demand from AI training wasn't apparent. By the time it became apparent Intel was aleady falling behind on process technology, which they must focus on now. Certainly from the architecture side if they can innovate on the integration of NN acceleration with their CPU and enable an open ecosystem of compilers they could regain some lost ground.
- lmeyerov 5y ago
  I don't think it was a mistake to go after mobile in general as much as in how in how they went after it. Apple, Google, Samsung, etc. approached the market differently so while most people talk about Intel messing up on the hw chip design, my meaning is they messed up the sw + vertical strategy for how to work with the market. I can imagine a world where they made made their own phone, OS, etc... just not with the current culture. If it was OK for a search engine + ads company to make their own phone designs + TPUs + OS + marketplace + apps + ..., why wasn't it for Intel? Building slightly better chips with light software support is 80s/90s thinking. They missed the wave in mobile, and I don't see the new CEO doing anything about using their position or $ to start competing differently. Jensen is inspiring in that he doesn't fight the last decade's battle: their architectures etc. keep getting better, but just as important, the market approach keeps evolving too.
onphonenow 5y ago
The software stack story is amazing at nvidia for sure

fspeech 5y ago

Yes it was a mistake to go after wireless instead of GPGPU, which is an area that they could utilize their existing strength. But it would have taken foresight. Before 2012 Nvidia's gross margin was significantly lower than now. The graphics card business was not attractive. The demand from AI training wasn't apparent. By the time it became apparent Intel was aleady falling behind on process technology, which they must focus on now. Certainly from the architecture side if they can innovate on the integration of NN acceleration with their CPU and enable an open ecosystem of compilers they could regain some lost ground.

lmeyerov 5y ago
I don't think it was a mistake to go after mobile in general as much as in how in how they went after it. Apple, Google, Samsung, etc. approached the market differently so while most people talk about Intel messing up on the hw chip design, my meaning is they messed up the sw + vertical strategy for how to work with the market. I can imagine a world where they made made their own phone, OS, etc... just not with the current culture. If it was OK for a search engine + ads company to make their own phone designs + TPUs + OS + marketplace + apps + ..., why wasn't it for Intel? Building slightly better chips with light software support is 80s/90s thinking. They missed the wave in mobile, and I don't see the new CEO doing anything about using their position or $ to start competing differently. Jensen is inspiring in that he doesn't fight the last decade's battle: their architectures etc. keep getting better, but just as important, the market approach keeps evolving too.

onphonenow 5y ago

The software stack story is amazing at nvidia for sure