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The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud

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Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud

#22
post #16

> Microsoft said it does not plan to sell the chips Add it to the list of things you can't buy at any price, and can only rent. That list is getting pretty long, especially if you count "any electronic device you can't fully control or modify".

Google does the same thing with their TPUs. The masses will be left with the NVidia monopoly, while large companies will be able to free themselves from that.

Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud

#23
post #3

It was only a matter of time. Google announced theirs years ago, Amazon announced theirs last year. Right now NVIDIA has the lead because they have the better software, but they can't make the chips fast enough. Will be interesting to see if their better software continues to keep them in the lead or if people are more interested in getting the capacity in any form.

nVidia still has the monopoly on training. Everyone else is just making chips for inference.

Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud

#24

Arm in inevitable for the server. It's interesting how now days, efficiency/power consumption is a consideration over pure raw performance.

Most of the nodes I see every day are still x86. But I’m in an academic environment, maybe things are slower over here. Does ARM actually seem to have legs outside? (Other than, like, nodes subsidized by Amazon’s wish to in-house everything they can).

It's going to take time, but momentum is seriously starting to build up now. Laptop market going to pick up with Snapdragon X and cloud providers are going to continue with more powerful designs.

Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud

#25

Arm in inevitable for the server. It's interesting how now days, efficiency/power consumption is a consideration over pure raw performance.

I genuinely don't see how x86 architecture will continue to survive the next 10 years. It will of course take longer to change home desktop users to new architectures; they will be the last segment to switch, but it seems all but inevitable. BTW, I'm not even speaking to whether x86 can compete at the same power per watt... I think it just won't make sense financially to be out of sync with the industry.

[dead]

Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud

#26
post #3

It was only a matter of time. Google announced theirs years ago, Amazon announced theirs last year. Right now NVIDIA has the lead because they have the better software, but they can't make the chips fast enough. Will be interesting to see if their better software continues to keep them in the lead or if people are more interested in getting the capacity in any form.

> Amazon announced theirs last year

Inferentia (inf1) was GA'ed in December 2019 so it's actually almost 4 years old now. The trainium (trn1) chips and the Inferentia 2 (inf2) refresh is indeed 1 year old though.

Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud

#27
post #23
post #3

It was only a matter of time. Google announced theirs years ago, Amazon announced theirs last year. Right now NVIDIA has the lead because they have the better software, but they can't make the chips fast enough. Will be interesting to see if their better software continues to keep them in the lead or if people are more interested in getting the capacity in any form.

nVidia still has the monopoly on training. Everyone else is just making chips for inference.

https://cloud.google.com/tpu/docs/training-on-tpu-pods

Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud

#29
post #16

> Microsoft said it does not plan to sell the chips Add it to the list of things you can't buy at any price, and can only rent. That list is getting pretty long, especially if you count "any electronic device you can't fully control or modify".

Sounds like an opportunity for hardware startups.

Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud

#30
post #16

> Microsoft said it does not plan to sell the chips Add it to the list of things you can't buy at any price, and can only rent. That list is getting pretty long, especially if you count "any electronic device you can't fully control or modify".

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