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The problem is Nvidia has no real moat. Being better technically and having better software is not enough long term for ridiculous profits, unless you have an e
by crop_rotation 3y ago
The problem is Nvidia has no real moat. Being better technically and having better software is not enough long term for ridiculous profits, unless you have an extreme lock in. And in Nvidia's case, it is not even as if there is a wide variety of external software that has to run on any alternative. Most companies just need to run <5 ML frameworks and moving that inference to something cheaper doesn't sound too hard, and in any case puts a ceiling on what Nvidia can charge. Training will be harder, but at some level of expenditure threshold crossing, there will be enough money pumped into it by atleast the big clouds to put a ceiling on Nvidia margins there too.
The comparisons with Nvidia's long term GPU dominance are misguided. GPUs were not making anywhere near the amount of money to put an extreme pressure from all sides. When you are on track to make MSFT level money without MSFT level moat, expect pressure from all sides trying to take any available slice.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pixl97 3y agoNvidia has just as much of moat as Intel does on processors. Yes, Intels dominance has subsided some recently, but even then the 'stickiness' of businesses and datacenters to stay with Intel is pretty extreme. Nvidia does a lot of work in performance, stability, and libraries that other vendors will have to complete with.
- crop_rotation 3y agoIntel ran general purpose software, that's why it was dominating. Any seamless alternative had to take the vast array of x86 applications and give better perf/price. An Nvidia alternative doesn't have to run all CUDA applications out there to make a dent. It just has to run LLM infernece to make a serious dent in Nvidia earnings.
- pixl97 3y ago"Intel ran general purpose software," Intel did not actually want to do this, and only between a series of lawsuits and licensing deals did it happen. AMD was a competitor to Intel for decades and only has really recently made a dent. At the end of the day delivering products and having a ecosystem developers can use are important. Nvidia's competitors have not delivered on that yet.
- topspin 3y agoIs the ARM dent bigger than the AMD dent at this point, or visa versa? The TSMC dent is certainly no laughing matter. Intel is accruing dents... On the plus side they have a real GPU offering just when having a GPU offering is a great idea, assuming it can be made competitive at inference.