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They're no longer energy competitive. I.e. the amount of power per compute exceeds what is available now. It's like if your taxi company bought taxis that wer
by iancmceachern 9mo ago
They're no longer energy competitive. I.e. the amount of power per compute exceeds what is available now.
It's like if your taxi company bought taxis that were more fuel efficient every year.
- bob1029 9mo agoMargins are typically not so razor thin that you cannot operate with technology from one generation ago. 15 vs 17 mpg is going to add up over time, but for a taxi company it's probably not a lethal situation to be in.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- iancmceachern 9mo agoTell that to the airline industry
- bob1029 9mo agoI don't think the airline industry is a great example from an IT perspective, but I agree with regard to the aircraft.
- hibikir 9mo agoAnd yet they aren't running planes and engines all from 2023 or beyond: See the MD-11 that crashed in Louisville: Nobody has made a new MD-11 in over 20 years. Planes move to less competitive routes, change carriers, and eventually might even stop carrying people and switch to cargo, but the plane itself doesn't get to have zero value when the new one comes out. An airline will want to replace their planes, but a new plane isn't fully amortized in a year or three: It still has value for quite a while
- SchemaLoad 9mo agoAt least with crypto mining this was the case. Hardware from 6 months ago is useless ewaste because the new generation is more power efficient. All depends on how expensive the hardware is vs the cost of power.
- mikkupikku 9mo agoIf a taxi company did that every year, they'd be losing a lot of money. Of course new cars and cards are cheaper to operate than old ones, but is that difference enough to offset buying a new one every one to three years?
- wordpad 9mo agoIf your competitor refreshes their cards and you dont, they will win on margin. You kind of have to.
- lazide 9mo agoNot necessarily if you count capital costs vs operating costs/margins. Replacing cars every 3 years vs a couple % in efficiency is not an obvious trade off. Especially if you can do it in 5 years instead of 3.
- zozbot234 9mo agoYou can sell the old, less efficient GPUs to folks who will be running them with markedly lower duty cycles (so, less emphasis on direct operational costs), e.g. for on-prem inference or even just typical workstation/consumer use. It ends up being a win-win trade.
- lazide 9mo agoThen you’re dealing with a lot of labor to do the switches (and arrange sales of used equipment), plus capital float costs while you do it. It can make sense at a certain scale, but it’s a non trivial amount of cost and effort for potentially marginal returns.
- pixl97 9mo agoBuilding a new data center and getting power takes years to double your capacity. Swapping out out a rack that is twice as fast takes very little time in comparison.
- echelon 9mo agoNvidia has plenty of time and money to adjust. They're already buying out upstart competitors to their throne. It's not like the CUDA advantage is going anywhere overnight, either. Also, if Nvidia invests in its users and in the infrastructure layouts, it gets to see upside no matter what happens.