5 ms·

OpenAI now has an option to buy 10% of AMD for $0.01 per share, subject to certain milestones. Basically, AMD is giving up equity to buy its way into the AI ma

by cs702 1y ago

OpenAI now has an option to buy 10% of AMD for $0.01 per share, subject to certain milestones. Basically, AMD is giving up equity to buy its way into the AI market. It's fantastic news, because OpenAI and AMD will now work together to develop decent software libraries for AI on AMD chips. We all want an alternative to Nvidia and cuda. This partnership could deliver it in the not too distant future.

giancarlostoro 1y ago
My understanding from the more hardware savvy friends I have is that AMD is better for inference (so when you run a model) vs for training Nvidia is still king. Would be interesting if OpenAI does in fact take AMD's offer and how they use it (if they even share openly).
- alexeldeib 1y ago
  Larger memory, weaker comms. You can optimize for this by doing things like increasing batch size/data parallelism vs sharding schemes with more comms. At scale training won’t be able to avoid comms entirely, while many models can fit in a single MI300 for serving.
- cs702 1y ago
  Today, yes, it's true that AMD hardware can be competitive mainly for inference. The story here is about the future. Over time, OpenAI would benefit if AMD hardware becomes competitive for training too. Nvidia currently gets to charge whatever the market can bear on its dominant training hardware. If AMD hardware becomes a real alternative for training, Nvidia will be forced to compete on price.
  - giancarlostoro 1y ago
    The reason I think its worth noting is that Inference is definitely what I imagine an insane amount of their computer is / will be spent on. I could see a very optimal setup where training is all Nvidia, but inference becomes reliant on AMD.
- thiago_fm 1y ago
  For inference there are many solutions like groq. The margins there will be small. The fat margins is in training, in NVidia hardware.
  - aurareturn 1y ago
    Inference margins will be small(er) but it will be much bigger in market size than training. That said, I'd much rather be leading in training than inference, of course. Nvidia still leads in inference, by the way.
- neya 1y ago
  > OpenAI > "If they even share openly" That fact that this even needs to be pointed out but is normalized in the AI industry. Sadly, in the history of Open AI, they've been anything but open.
tanh 1y ago
OpenAI are also using the market to fund some of their rollout instead of going public/giving up equity.
lelanthran 1y ago
It's only fantastic news if there is no bubble. If there is a bubble, AMD just gave away $160m for nothing in return.
- tanh 1y ago
  I think OpenAI will try and continue this elsewhere, which would be pretty worrying. It lets them not give up any equity, just use their name to pump stocks and earn capital.
  - rhetocj23 1y ago
    That’s exactly it. Their only competitive weapon is brand name right now and they are using that for all its worth
- dist-epoch 1y ago
  Nothing in return? AMD stock is up 30% today on this news.
  - lelanthran 1y ago
    > Nothing in return? AMD stock is up 30% today on this news. Companies don't actually get any money when their stock goes up. Maybe AMD owns a lot of their own stock and can sell it off to see a gain, but the stock simply rising doesn't contribute anything to AMD.
    - xwolfi 1y ago
      Who is AMD ? A collection of shareholders, all 30% richer ? A collection of employees, all with stock vesting 30% richer ? A bank account in a corporate bank, that indeed changed not at all ?
- SecretDreams 1y ago
  > AMD just gave away $160m for nothing in return. Where'd you get this number? The equity is worth closer to 34bil if fully realized?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
rs186 1y ago
> It's fantastic news, because OpenAI and AMD will now work together to develop decent software libraries for AI on AMD chips. Too fast to jump to conclusion. I'd say they will work together to develop software specifically designed for OpenAI products. It is a giant question mark whether we'll get libraries for general purpose computing out of this.
- cs702 1y ago
  OpenAI and AMD both have strong incentives to chip away at Nvidia's dominant position, and the best way to do that is by releasing software tools to the public. Ask yourself: What would first-class PyTorch/Triton and Jax support for AMD hardware do to Nvidia's dominance and pricing power?
  - rs186 1y ago
    That argument could apply to every company who build their business on AI (except Nvidia) but we haven't seen any notable initiative or any significant movement in the past 3 years. I would not put my bets on private companies' goodwill. I'd rather believe they'll do whatever is most important for their business priority, understand things at their face value, and then hope for the best.
    - cs702 1y ago
      I disagree. My argument could not apply to other companies, because AMD is the only other maker of GPU hardware that could conceivably compete with Nvidia at scale in the AI market. Intel's GPUs have never been in the same league. New alternatives like Cerebras, etc. are too small, too different, and too unproven at scale. I'm not betting on anyone's goodwill, I'm betting on OpenAI's and AMD's self-interest. Please don't attack a straw-man.
      - Jlagreen 1y ago
        All Tech companies including OpenAI have initiatives for their own chips. Nobody talks about Intel. Tech companies have the following options: 1. Buy Nvdia high performance stack with stable and fast support and deploy your SW developers to quickly get started 2. Buy AMD whatever stack and deploy your SW developers to make a lot of ground work 3. Develop and deploy your own chips and use your SW developers to make your SW from scratch but exactly as you need it The only reason they might go with No. 2 is if AMD gives them the HW more or less for free but maybe even then will mix 2 + 3 if they don't want 1. And AMD deal is showing exactly this, AMD has to give free quity to get a customer for their HW. What people don't get, who in their right mind would switch from one vendor lock-in to another with the difference on investing SW development into the 2nd???? The resources spend on AMD will bind customers to AMD. It doesn't matter if RoCm is open source as long as it runs only on AMD. If RoCm would run on any AI chip (including Nvidia) then we would have a case of an interesting switch but then the question comes up, why buy AMD if RoCm doesn't require it?

by cs702 1y ago

giancarlostoro 1y ago

My understanding from the more hardware savvy friends I have is that AMD is better for inference (so when you run a model) vs for training Nvidia is still king. Would be interesting if OpenAI does in fact take AMD's offer and how they use it (if they even share openly).

alexeldeib 1y ago
Larger memory, weaker comms. You can optimize for this by doing things like increasing batch size/data parallelism vs sharding schemes with more comms. At scale training won’t be able to avoid comms entirely, while many models can fit in a single MI300 for serving.
cs702 1y ago
Today, yes, it's true that AMD hardware can be competitive mainly for inference. The story here is about the future. Over time, OpenAI would benefit if AMD hardware becomes competitive for training too. Nvidia currently gets to charge whatever the market can bear on its dominant training hardware. If AMD hardware becomes a real alternative for training, Nvidia will be forced to compete on price.
- giancarlostoro 1y ago
  The reason I think its worth noting is that Inference is definitely what I imagine an insane amount of their computer is / will be spent on. I could see a very optimal setup where training is all Nvidia, but inference becomes reliant on AMD.
thiago_fm 1y ago
For inference there are many solutions like groq. The margins there will be small. The fat margins is in training, in NVidia hardware.
- aurareturn 1y ago
  Inference margins will be small(er) but it will be much bigger in market size than training. That said, I'd much rather be leading in training than inference, of course. Nvidia still leads in inference, by the way.
neya 1y ago
> OpenAI > "If they even share openly" That fact that this even needs to be pointed out but is normalized in the AI industry. Sadly, in the history of Open AI, they've been anything but open.

tanh 1y ago

OpenAI are also using the market to fund some of their rollout instead of going public/giving up equity.

lelanthran 1y ago

It's only fantastic news if there is no bubble. If there is a bubble, AMD just gave away $160m for nothing in return.

tanh 1y ago
I think OpenAI will try and continue this elsewhere, which would be pretty worrying. It lets them not give up any equity, just use their name to pump stocks and earn capital.
- rhetocj23 1y ago
  That’s exactly it. Their only competitive weapon is brand name right now and they are using that for all its worth
dist-epoch 1y ago
Nothing in return? AMD stock is up 30% today on this news.
- lelanthran 1y ago
  > Nothing in return? AMD stock is up 30% today on this news. Companies don't actually get any money when their stock goes up. Maybe AMD owns a lot of their own stock and can sell it off to see a gain, but the stock simply rising doesn't contribute anything to AMD.
  - xwolfi 1y ago
    Who is AMD ? A collection of shareholders, all 30% richer ? A collection of employees, all with stock vesting 30% richer ? A bank account in a corporate bank, that indeed changed not at all ?
SecretDreams 1y ago
> AMD just gave away $160m for nothing in return. Where'd you get this number? The equity is worth closer to 34bil if fully realized?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

rs186 1y ago

> It's fantastic news, because OpenAI and AMD will now work together to develop decent software libraries for AI on AMD chips. Too fast to jump to conclusion. I'd say they will work together to develop software specifically designed for OpenAI products. It is a giant question mark whether we'll get libraries for general purpose computing out of this.

cs702 1y ago
OpenAI and AMD both have strong incentives to chip away at Nvidia's dominant position, and the best way to do that is by releasing software tools to the public. Ask yourself: What would first-class PyTorch/Triton and Jax support for AMD hardware do to Nvidia's dominance and pricing power?
- rs186 1y ago
  That argument could apply to every company who build their business on AI (except Nvidia) but we haven't seen any notable initiative or any significant movement in the past 3 years. I would not put my bets on private companies' goodwill. I'd rather believe they'll do whatever is most important for their business priority, understand things at their face value, and then hope for the best.
  - cs702 1y ago
    I disagree. My argument could not apply to other companies, because AMD is the only other maker of GPU hardware that could conceivably compete with Nvidia at scale in the AI market. Intel's GPUs have never been in the same league. New alternatives like Cerebras, etc. are too small, too different, and too unproven at scale. I'm not betting on anyone's goodwill, I'm betting on OpenAI's and AMD's self-interest. Please don't attack a straw-man.
    - Jlagreen 1y ago
      All Tech companies including OpenAI have initiatives for their own chips. Nobody talks about Intel. Tech companies have the following options: 1. Buy Nvdia high performance stack with stable and fast support and deploy your SW developers to quickly get started 2. Buy AMD whatever stack and deploy your SW developers to make a lot of ground work 3. Develop and deploy your own chips and use your SW developers to make your SW from scratch but exactly as you need it The only reason they might go with No. 2 is if AMD gives them the HW more or less for free but maybe even then will mix 2 + 3 if they don't want 1. And AMD deal is showing exactly this, AMD has to give free quity to get a customer for their HW. What people don't get, who in their right mind would switch from one vendor lock-in to another with the difference on investing SW development into the 2nd???? The resources spend on AMD will bind customers to AMD. It doesn't matter if RoCm is open source as long as it runs only on AMD. If RoCm would run on any AI chip (including Nvidia) then we would have a case of an interesting switch but then the question comes up, why buy AMD if RoCm doesn't require it?