If Nvidia were interested in "open" AI, they would spend time to collaborate with AMD, etc. to build an (updated) open alternative to CUDA. That's probably the most closed part of the whole stack right now.
sounds · 51m ago
Nvidia is interested in commoditizing their complements. It's a business strategy to decrease the power of OpenAI (for instance).
Nvidia dreams of a world where there are lots of "open" alternatives to OpenAI, like there are lots of open game engines and lots open software in general. All buying closed Nvidia chips.
amelius · 21m ago
But AI depends on a small number of tensor operators, primitives which can be relatively easily implemented by competitors, so compute is very close to being a commodity when it comes to AI.
A company like Cerebras (founded in 2015) proves that this is true.
The moat is not in computer architecture. I'd say the real moat is in semiconductor fabrication.
someone7x · 34m ago
> commoditizing their complements
Feels like a modern euphemism for “subjugate their neighbors”.
skybrian · 5m ago
No, it’s encouraging competition and cost-cutting in a part of the market they don’t control. This can be a reason for companies to support open source, for example.
Meanwhile, the companies running data centers will look for ways to support alternatives to Nvidia. That’s how they keep costs down.
It’s a good way to play companies off each other, when it works.
jvanderbot · 29m ago
Business has always been a civilized version of war, and one which will always capture us in similar ways, so I guess wartime analogies are appropriate?
Still it feels awful black and white to phrase it that way when this is a clear net good and better alignment of incentives than before.
arthurcolle · 43m ago
Why is OpenAI a threat to Nvidia? They are still highly dependent on those GPUs
grim_io · 38m ago
Google shows that Nvidia is not necessary. How long until more follow?
NitpickLawyer · 26m ago
Tbf, goog started a long time ago with their TPUs. And they've had some bumps along the way. It's not as easy as one might think. There are certainly efforts to produce alternatives, but it's not an easy task. Even the ASIC-like providers like cerberas and grok are having problems with large models. They seemed very promising with SLMs, but once MoEs became a thing they started to struggle.
patates · 36m ago
Maybe if they grow too much they'd develop their own chips. Also if one company wins, as in they wipe out the competition, they'd have much less incentive to train more and more advanced models.
victorbjorklund · 6m ago
One large customer has more bargin power than many big ones. And risk is OpenAI would try to make their own chips if they capture all the market.
vlovich123 · 25m ago
If OpenAI becomes the only buyer, they can push around Nvidia and invest in alternatives to blunt their power. If OpenAI is one of many customers, then they’re not a strong bargaining position and Nvidia gets to set the terms.
tomrod · 38m ago
Two concepts
- Monopsony is the inverse of Monopoly -- one buyer. Walmart is often a monopsony for suppliers (exclusive or near exclusive).
- Desire for vertical integration and value extraction, related to #1 but with some additional nuances
next_xibalba · 33m ago
Who is the one buyer in the Nvidia scenario? How would that benefit Nvidia?
KaoruAoiShiho · 21m ago
It would hurt nvidia not benefit, that's why nvidia spends a lot of effort to prevent that from happening, and it's not the case currently.
kookamamie · 51m ago
Indeed. This is throwing pennies in virtue-signaling openness.
bongodongobob · 53m ago
That's AMDs fault, not Nvidia's.
pmdr · 10m ago
So basically nvidia handing out cash to itself. <insert Obama medal meme>
datadrivenangel · 1h ago
Suggest changing the title to:
NSF and NVIDIA award Ai2 $152M to support building a fully open AI ecosystem
To better indicate that this is not related to OpenAI and that the group intends to release everything needed to train their models.
brunohaid · 1h ago
Maybe that'll help them hire someone who can at least respond to S2 API key requests...
Being open is great, but if over the course of 6 months 3 different entities (including 2 well known universities) apply and send more than a dozen follow ups to 3 different "Reach out to us!" emails with exactly 0 response, the "open" starts sounding like it's coming from Facebook.
zoobab · 47m ago
"Open" like an open source FPGA implementation of their chips?
Nvidia dreams of a world where there are lots of "open" alternatives to OpenAI, like there are lots of open game engines and lots open software in general. All buying closed Nvidia chips.
A company like Cerebras (founded in 2015) proves that this is true.
The moat is not in computer architecture. I'd say the real moat is in semiconductor fabrication.
Feels like a modern euphemism for “subjugate their neighbors”.
Meanwhile, the companies running data centers will look for ways to support alternatives to Nvidia. That’s how they keep costs down.
It’s a good way to play companies off each other, when it works.
Still it feels awful black and white to phrase it that way when this is a clear net good and better alignment of incentives than before.
- Monopsony is the inverse of Monopoly -- one buyer. Walmart is often a monopsony for suppliers (exclusive or near exclusive).
- Desire for vertical integration and value extraction, related to #1 but with some additional nuances
NSF and NVIDIA award Ai2 $152M to support building a fully open AI ecosystem
To better indicate that this is not related to OpenAI and that the group intends to release everything needed to train their models.
Being open is great, but if over the course of 6 months 3 different entities (including 2 well known universities) apply and send more than a dozen follow ups to 3 different "Reach out to us!" emails with exactly 0 response, the "open" starts sounding like it's coming from Facebook.