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If CUDA isn't that strong of a moat/tie-in and Chinese tech companies can seemingly reasonably migrate to these chips, why hasn't AMD been able to compete more
by notfried 1y ago
If CUDA isn't that strong of a moat/tie-in and Chinese tech companies can seemingly reasonably migrate to these chips, why hasn't AMD been able to compete more aggressively with nVidia on a US/global scale when they had a much longer head start?
- eunos 1y agoBecause Cuda moat in China is wrecked artificially by political reason rather than technical reason
- nextworddev 1y agoThis is the right answer
- chii 1y agoAMD probably don't have chinese state backing, presumably, where profit is less of a concern and they can do it unprofitably for many years (decades even) as long as the end outcome is dominance.
- dworks 1y agoMost chipmakers in China are making or have made their new generation of products CUDA-compatible.
- brookst 1y ago1. AMD isn’t different enough. They’d be subject to the same export restrictions and political instability as Nvidia, so why would global companies switch to them? 2. CUDA has been a huge moat, but the incentives are incredibly strong for everybody except Nvidia to change that. The fact that it was an insurmountable moat five years ago in a $5B market does not mean it’s equally powerful in a $300B market. 3. AMD’s culture and core competencies are really not aligned to playing disruptor here. Nvidia is generally more agile and more experimental. It would have taken a serious pivot years ago for AMD to be the right company to compete.
- danesparza 1y agoAnd it would be a big bet for AMD. They don't create and manufacture chips 'just in time' -- it takes man hours and MONEY to spin up a fab, not to mention marketing dollars.
- sagarm 1y agoAMD is fabless. They spun off GlobalFoundries years ago.
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y agoAMD has been producing GPU compute cards (and is highly sucessful at it) for nearly as long as nVidia. (https://www.amd.com/en/products/accelerators/instinct.html https://www.amd.com/en/products/accelerators/instinct.html)
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y agoAMD is HIGHLY successful in the GPU compute market. They have the Instinct line which actually outperforms most nVidia chips for less money. It's the CUDA software ecosystem they have not been able to overcome. AMD has had multiple ecosystem stalls but it does appear that ROCm is finally taking off which is open source and multi-vendor. AMD is unifying their GPU architectures (like nVidia) for the next gen to be able to subsidize development by gaming, etc., card sales (like nVidia).
- immibis 1y agoWhy doesn't AMD just write a CUDA translation layer? Yeah, it's a bit difficult to say "just", but they're a pretty big company. It's not like one guy doing it in a basement. Does Nvidia have patents on CUDA? They're probably invalid in China which explains why China can do this and AMD can't.
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y agoThey did...HIPIFY translates from CUDA to HIP (ROCm) https://rocm.docs.amd.com/projects/HIPIFY/en/latest/index.html https://rocm.docs.amd.com/projects/HIPIFY/en/latest/index.ht...
- FrustratedMonky 1y agoPeople are trying to break the moat. See, Mojo, a new language to compile to other chips. https://www.modular.com/mojo https://www.modular.com/mojo
- PunchyHamster 1y agoI don't think "learn entirely new language" is all that appealing vs "just buy NVIDIA cards"
- FrustratedMonky 1y agoThis was in terms of breaking the Nvidia monopoly. Mojo is a variant of python. When looking at the difficulty of migrating from CUDA , learning python is pretty small barrier. Sure, you can keep buying nvidia, but that wasn't what was discussed.
- almostgotcaught 1y ago> Mojo is a variant of python. Lol this is how I know no one that pushes mojo on hn has actually ever used mojo.
- FrustratedMonky 1y agoYes, over simplifying the concept. what is wrong with that? If I post a thesis on compilers would that really help clarify the subject? Read the link for details. Is Mojo attempting to offer a non-Cuda solution? Yes. Is it using Python as the language? Yes. Is there some complicated details there? Yes. Congratulations.
- almostgotcaught 1y ago> Yes. Is it using Python as the language? You're completely wrong here. That's the "what's wrong with it".
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y agoIt's interesting that CUDA is a moat because if AI really was as good as they claim then wouldn't the CUDA moat evaporate?
- random3 1y agoExactly. The whole argument that software is a moat is at best a temporary illusion. The supply chain is the moat, software is not.
- belval 1y ago> If CUDA isn't that strong of a moat/tie-in and Chinese tech companies can seemingly reasonably migrate to these chips, why hasn't AMD been able to compete more aggressively with nVidia on a US/global scale when they had a much longer head start? It's all about investment. If you are a random company you don't want to sink millions in figuring out how to use AMD so you apply the tried an true "no one gets fired for buying Nvidia". If you are an authoritarian state with some level of control over domestic companies, that calculus does not exist. You can just ban Nvidia chips and force to learn how to use the new thing. By using the new thing an ecosystem gets built around it. It's the beauty of centralized controlled in the face of free markets and I don't doubt that it will pay-off for them.
- PunchyHamster 1y agoI think they'd be entirely fine just using NVIDIA, and most of the push came from US itself trying to ban export (or "export", as NVIDIA cards are put together in the china factories...). Also AMD really didn't invest enough in making their software experience as nice as NVIDIA.
- belval 1y agoI was referring to this: https://www.reuters.com/markets/emerging/china-tells-tech-firms-stop-buying-nvidias-ai-chips-ft-reports-2025-09-17/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/emerging/china-tells-tech-fi...
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y agoROCm is making serious inroads, now.
- ithkuil 1y agoAre there precedents where an authoritarian state outperformed the free market in technological innovation? Or would china be different because it's a mix of market and centralized rule?
- shrubble 1y agoSadly, AMD and its precursor graphics company, ATI, have had garbage driver software since literally the mid-1990s. They have never had a focus on top notch software development.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- baq 1y agoCUDA isn't a moat... in China. The culture is much more NIH there.
- buyucu 1y agoI use AMD MI300s at work, and my experience is that for PyTorch at least there is no moat. The moat only exists in people's minds. Until 2022 or so AMD was not really investing into their software stack. Once they did, they caught up with Nvidia.
- imtringued 1y agoThe only way the average person can access a MI300 is through the AMD developer cloud trial which gives you a mere 25 hours to test your software. Meanwhile NVidia hands out entire GPUs for free to research labs. If AMD really wanted to play in the same league as NVidia, they should have built their own cloud service and offered a full stack experience akin to Google with their TPUs, then they would be justified in ignoring the consumer market, but alas, most people run their software on their local hardware first.
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y agoAMD sells 100% of the chips they can produce and at a premium. It's chicken and the egg, here. They have to compete with nVidia for pre-buying fab capacity at TSMC and they are getting out bought.
- tonyhart7 1y agoAMD also need to share that fab wafer capacity to processor division and third party client like (sony,valve,various hpc client)
- Cheer2171 1y agoI can rent an MI300X for $2.69/hr right now on runpod.
- overfeed 1y ago> The only way the average person can access a MI300 is through the AMD developer cloud trial which gives you a mere 25 hours to test your software HN has a blindspot where AMDs absence in the prosumer/SME space is interpreted as failing horribly. Yet AMDs instinct cards are selling very well at the top end of the market. If you were trying to disrupt a dominant player, would you try selling a million gadgets to a million people, or a million gadgets to 3-10 large organizations?
- sampton 1y agoBecause Chinese government can tell their companies to adopt Chinese tech and they will do it. Short term pain for long term gain.
- belter 1y agoDo you know how bad AMD is at doing drivers and Software in general?
- buckle8017 1y agoCUDA is a legal moat. A reimplantation would run into copyright issues. No such problem in China.