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What sense is in it for NVIDIA? They can build cloud on their own, they prove it with GeForce now. Why middle man?

by galkk 3y ago

jtsiskin 3y ago
Lambda uses the money from NVIDIA to buy NVIDIA cards = NVIDIA gets equity for 70% off https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-financial-results-for-first-quarter-fiscal-2024#:~:text=GAAP%20and%20non-GAAP https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-financia...
AlotOfReading 3y ago
Lots of potential reasons Nvidia doesn't want to be selling a public cloud. For one, they want to sell shovels to the gold rush, not pan for themselves. Two, they'd be directly competing with their major datacenter customers. They already do this in other markets, but there's a balancing act with how much you can push the big cloud players and how much they'll spend trying to replace you. Nvidia is already struggling to keep them in line (controlling customers is in their DNA) and every new market segment they enter makes antitrust regulators wary. Having an investment also doesn't tie them to the fate of any particular company. If it goes bankrupt tomorrow, Nvidia doesn't have to sit there and fire the employees/unwind the company. Lots of others too, like not wanting to get involved with future cloud legislation.
- andrewstuart 3y ago
  Nvidia has a monopoly. It is unconcerned about normal business practice. If AWS/Google/Azure don't like Nvidia running their own AI cloud, they can choose to not buy Nvidia AI hardware. Microsoft was unconcerned about Windows stepping on Apple's toes.
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    Nvidia dominates the market largely because they're the best and people choose to buy from them, rather than primarily from shady OEM tactics like Microsoft did. People could buy Cerberus, or AMD, or Imagination, or a dozen other vendors, they just don't. Google famously made the choice to design TPUs rather than buy Nvidia. They still have Nvidia in GCloud due to customer pressure. I've been involved with at least one GPU design to avoid buying from Nvidia. Nvidia holds grudges for a long, long time though.

What sense is in it for NVIDIA? They can build cloud on their own, they prove it with GeForce now. Why middle man?

by galkk 3y ago

What sense is in it for NVIDIA? They can build cloud on their own, they prove it with GeForce now. Why middle man?

Lambda uses the money from NVIDIA to buy NVIDIA cards = NVIDIA gets equity for 70% off https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-financial-results-for-first-quarter-fiscal-2024#:~:text=GAAP%20and%20non-GAAP https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-financia...

AlotOfReading 3y ago

Lots of potential reasons Nvidia doesn't want to be selling a public cloud. For one, they want to sell shovels to the gold rush, not pan for themselves. Two, they'd be directly competing with their major datacenter customers. They already do this in other markets, but there's a balancing act with how much you can push the big cloud players and how much they'll spend trying to replace you. Nvidia is already struggling to keep them in line (controlling customers is in their DNA) and every new market segment they enter makes antitrust regulators wary. Having an investment also doesn't tie them to the fate of any particular company. If it goes bankrupt tomorrow, Nvidia doesn't have to sit there and fire the employees/unwind the company. Lots of others too, like not wanting to get involved with future cloud legislation.

andrewstuart 3y ago
Nvidia has a monopoly. It is unconcerned about normal business practice. If AWS/Google/Azure don't like Nvidia running their own AI cloud, they can choose to not buy Nvidia AI hardware. Microsoft was unconcerned about Windows stepping on Apple's toes.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  Nvidia dominates the market largely because they're the best and people choose to buy from them, rather than primarily from shady OEM tactics like Microsoft did. People could buy Cerberus, or AMD, or Imagination, or a dozen other vendors, they just don't. Google famously made the choice to design TPUs rather than buy Nvidia. They still have Nvidia in GCloud due to customer pressure. I've been involved with at least one GPU design to avoid buying from Nvidia. Nvidia holds grudges for a long, long time though.