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Does Altman want to build specialized AI chips? Can he compete against Nvidia?

dekhn 3y ago
Yes, he wants to build specialized chips. He doesn't need to compete against nvidia. The market size is growing so quickly nvidia has trouble meeting demand. And it looks like the deals he's making are from folks who want their own supply that is less subject to US control. The scale and scope of what's being described seems outlandish, I think $150B would probably be enough to at least get started. that should get you two plants in a country more amenable to building and running a chip facility than the US, plus a hardware design team (to make AltmanTPU v1), a software design team (to make ATPU work with pytorch), and the business side of things. I don't see these things being sold commercial, it's more like airplanes- a few big players put up the capital to fund the construction of large batches and then get dibs on the first good volume runs. I think the real question here is what will ASML's involvement be, what process and design will the TPU have, what will the computational infrastructure surrounding the TPU look like, and how we are going to plumb all the necessary power to the TPU farms.
- aurareturn 3y ago
  The scale and scope of what's being described seems outlandish, I think $150B would probably be enough to at least get started. that should get you two plants in a country more amenable to building and running a chip facility than the US, plus a hardware design team (to make AltmanTPU v1), a software design team (to make ATPU work with pytorch), and the business side of things. Ask Intel if they can just throw money at advanced chip node manufacturing. The only company that is able to do 3nm at scale with good yield is TSMC. Even at 5nm, Intel and Samsung aren't competitive.
- fbdab103 3y ago
  NVidia can't keep up with demand because ASML and TSMC have huge backlogs. Unless you can just buy up a competitor's slot in the queue, you are left with re-building an infrastructure pipeline that has been developed over decades.
  - LamaOfRuin 3y ago
    And if they want it outside of US control, they can't involve either ASML or TSMC (or convince both companies that they can live under US sanctions).
simne 3y ago
Two answers, each 100%. It is known very long time, that specialized AI chips are more efficient than GPUs, even when we talk about Tensor cores, because GPU is not only Tensor cores, they MUST include ramdac, all other video stuff, and network for fast communications of all this stuff, which is not of need for AI chip. Before Tensor cores, benchmarks was about 4 times against GPUs, now better but still significant lag.

Yes, he wants to build specialized chips. He doesn't need to compete against nvidia. The market size is growing so quickly nvidia has trouble meeting demand. And it looks like the deals he's making are from folks who want their own supply that is less subject to US control. The scale and scope of what's being described seems outlandish, I think $150B would probably be enough to at least get started. that should get you two plants in a country more amenable to building and running a chip facility than the US, plus a hardware design team (to make AltmanTPU v1), a software design team (to make ATPU work with pytorch), and the business side of things. I don't see these things being sold commercial, it's more like airplanes- a few big players put up the capital to fund the construction of large batches and then get dibs on the first good volume runs. I think the real question here is what will ASML's involvement be, what process and design will the TPU have, what will the computational infrastructure surrounding the TPU look like, and how we are going to plumb all the necessary power to the TPU farms.

aurareturn 3y ago
The scale and scope of what's being described seems outlandish, I think $150B would probably be enough to at least get started. that should get you two plants in a country more amenable to building and running a chip facility than the US, plus a hardware design team (to make AltmanTPU v1), a software design team (to make ATPU work with pytorch), and the business side of things. Ask Intel if they can just throw money at advanced chip node manufacturing. The only company that is able to do 3nm at scale with good yield is TSMC. Even at 5nm, Intel and Samsung aren't competitive.
fbdab103 3y ago
NVidia can't keep up with demand because ASML and TSMC have huge backlogs. Unless you can just buy up a competitor's slot in the queue, you are left with re-building an infrastructure pipeline that has been developed over decades.
- LamaOfRuin 3y ago
  And if they want it outside of US control, they can't involve either ASML or TSMC (or convince both companies that they can live under US sanctions).

simne 3y ago

Two answers, each 100%. It is known very long time, that specialized AI chips are more efficient than GPUs, even when we talk about Tensor cores, because GPU is not only Tensor cores, they MUST include ramdac, all other video stuff, and network for fast communications of all this stuff, which is not of need for AI chip. Before Tensor cores, benchmarks was about 4 times against GPUs, now better but still significant lag.