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U.S. clears way for antitrust inquiries of Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. clears way for antitrust inquiries of Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI

#11

Post by moose_man »

mdorazio wrote: post #9

It's difficult for me to understand the thinking here. Nvidia is dominant because AMD and Intel completely dropped the ball on investing in frameworks to compete with CUDA. Microsoft... invested in OpenAI when it was clear that the newer batch of generative models had legs. OpenAI isn't really anticompetitive as far as I can tell - they just have the most money with which to vacuum up the most data and hire the top e…

It seems like the investigations are linked so it could be they are acting in concert in a way that prevents or disrupts competition. Say for instance, OpenAI was using Microsoft money to buy chips and Nvidia was favoring it in a way that hurt other AI startups.

Re: U.S. clears way for antitrust inquiries of Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI

#12

Post by shmerl »

mdorazio wrote: post #9

It's difficult for me to understand the thinking here. Nvidia is dominant because AMD and Intel completely dropped the ball on investing in frameworks to compete with CUDA. Microsoft... invested in OpenAI when it was clear that the newer batch of generative models had legs. OpenAI isn't really anticompetitive as far as I can tell - they just have the most money with which to vacuum up the most data and hire the top e…

CUDA is pure lock-in, so it only makes sense for antitrust regulators to evaluate if it's causing anti-competitive damage to the market. Hint - it is. Lock-in is never good.

Re: U.S. clears way for antitrust inquiries of Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI

#13

Post by faeriechangling »

mdorazio wrote: post #9

It's difficult for me to understand the thinking here. Nvidia is dominant because AMD and Intel completely dropped the ball on investing in frameworks to compete with CUDA. Microsoft... invested in OpenAI when it was clear that the newer batch of generative models had legs. OpenAI isn't really anticompetitive as far as I can tell - they just have the most money with which to vacuum up the most data and hire the top e…

Nvidia has done many anticompetitive things over the years even if what you’re saying is generally true. Gameworks comes to mind.

Re: U.S. clears way for antitrust inquiries of Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI

#15

Post by arvinsim »

shmerl wrote: post #12
mdorazio wrote: post #9

It's difficult for me to understand the thinking here. Nvidia is dominant because AMD and Intel completely dropped the ball on investing in frameworks to compete with CUDA. Microsoft... invested in OpenAI when it was clear that the newer batch of generative models had legs. OpenAI isn't really anticompetitive as far as I can tell - they just have the most money with which to vacuum up the most data and hire the top e…

CUDA is pure lock-in, so it only makes sense for antitrust regulators to evaluate if it's causing anti-competitive damage to the market. Hint - it is. Lock-in is never good.

Wouldn't that logic also apply to, say, Apple?

Re: U.S. clears way for antitrust inquiries of Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI

#16

Post by nimish »

roenxi wrote: post #8

Nvidia solved a hard problem and their competitors all failed. I spent years with an AMD card growing progressively more annoyed at their self-inflicted apparent inability to multiply matrices on demand. Nvidia had nothing to do with their failure, unless they had some sort of high-level mole in AMD's driver teams. Hitting the only successful company in a difficult field with legal assaults is not the obvious path to…

Yep. AMD and Intel had two decades to come up with a CUDA alternative or even a parallel implementation and both failed to do anything. Incompetence.

Re: U.S. clears way for antitrust inquiries of Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI

#17

Post by shmerl »

arvinsim wrote: post #15
shmerl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CUDA is pure lock-in, so it only makes sense for antitrust regulators to evaluate if it's causing anti-competitive damage to the market. Hint - it is. Lock-in is never good.

Wouldn't that logic also apply to, say, Apple?

Of course it would. And should be applied.

Re: U.S. clears way for antitrust inquiries of Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI

#18

Post by vlovich123 »

roenxi wrote: post #8

Nvidia solved a hard problem and their competitors all failed. I spent years with an AMD card growing progressively more annoyed at their self-inflicted apparent inability to multiply matrices on demand. Nvidia had nothing to do with their failure, unless they had some sort of high-level mole in AMD's driver teams. Hitting the only successful company in a difficult field with legal assaults is not the obvious path to…

The thing with monopoly laws is it doesn’t matter how you got into pole position. The point is that you’re illegally utilizing tangential benefits of the pole position to maintain that position as well as enter new markets.

> including how the company’s software locks customers into using its chips, as well as how Nvidia distributes those chips to customers.

The lock-in is probably a losing argument on technical merits unless NVIDIA is doing something nefarious there (which the lawsuit will potentially reveal). If nVidia is distributing chips in preferred ways to partners it wants to succeed (e.g. those partnered with MSFT which it has a very cozy and tight-knit relationship), that could be an anti trust thing.

> Microsoft structured its minority stake in OpenAI in part to avoid antitrust scrutiny, The Times has reported. Microsoft also reached a deal in March to hire most of the staff of Inflection AI, another A.I. start-up, and license its technology. Because the deal was not a standard acquisition, it may be harder for regulators to scrutinize.

So there is an argument to be made that MSFT is acutely self-aware its behavior could be viewed as engaging in antitrust. If there’s a law against structuring financial transactions, why isn’t similar behavior in the business world viewed similarly as trying to bypass the spirit of the law?

Re: U.S. clears way for antitrust inquiries of Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI

#20

Post by lostmsu »

shmerl wrote: post #12
mdorazio wrote: post #9

It's difficult for me to understand the thinking here. Nvidia is dominant because AMD and Intel completely dropped the ball on investing in frameworks to compete with CUDA. Microsoft... invested in OpenAI when it was clear that the newer batch of generative models had legs. OpenAI isn't really anticompetitive as far as I can tell - they just have the most money with which to vacuum up the most data and hire the top e…

CUDA is pure lock-in, so it only makes sense for antitrust regulators to evaluate if it's causing anti-competitive damage to the market. Hint - it is. Lock-in is never good.

How can a product on its own cause anti-competitive damage?
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