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Calculating the cost of a Google DeepMind paper

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Re: Calculating the cost of a Google DeepMind paper

#11

Post by arcade79 »

A lot of misunderstandings among the commenters here.

From the link: "the total compute cost it would take to replicate the paper"

It's not Google's cost. Google's cost is of course entirely different. It's the cost for the author if he were to rent the resources to replicate the paper.

For Google, all of it is running at a "best effort" resource tier, grabbing available resources when not requested by higher priority jobs. It's effectively free resources (except electricity consumption). If any "more important" jobs with a higher priority comes in and asks for the resources, the paper-writers jobs will just be preempted.

Re: Calculating the cost of a Google DeepMind paper

#12

Post by c-linkage »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #8

This is calculation is pretty pointless and the title is flat out wrong. It also gets lost in finer details while totally missing the bigger picture. After all, the original paper written by people either working for Google or at Google. So you can safely assume they used Google resources. That means they wouldn't have used H100s, but Google TPUs. Since they design and own these TPUs, you can also safely assume that…

Reproducibility is a key element of the scientific process

How is anyone else going to reproduce the experiment if it's going to cost them $10 million because they don't work at Google and would have to rent the infrastructure?

Re: Calculating the cost of a Google DeepMind paper

#13

Post by mrazomor »

arcade79 wrote: post #11

A lot of misunderstandings among the commenters here. From the link: "the total compute cost it would take to replicate the paper" It's not Google's cost. Google's cost is of course entirely different. It's the cost for the author if he were to rent the resources to replicate the paper. For Google, all of it is running at a "best effort" resource tier, grabbing available resources when not requested by higher priorit…

This assumes the common resources (CPU, RAM, etc.), not the ones required for the LLM training (GPU, TPU, etc.). It's different economy.

TL; DR: It's not ~free.

Re: Calculating the cost of a Google DeepMind paper

#14

Post by tokai »

c-linkage wrote: post #12
sigmoid10 wrote: post #8

This is calculation is pretty pointless and the title is flat out wrong. It also gets lost in finer details while totally missing the bigger picture. After all, the original paper written by people either working for Google or at Google. So you can safely assume they used Google resources. That means they wouldn't have used H100s, but Google TPUs. Since they design and own these TPUs, you can also safely assume that…

Reproducibility is a key element of the scientific process How is anyone else going to reproduce the experiment if it's going to cost them $10 million because they don't work at Google and would have to rent the infrastructure?

Cheap compared to some high energy physic experiments.

Re: Calculating the cost of a Google DeepMind paper

#15

Post by bombcar »

arcade79 wrote: post #11

A lot of misunderstandings among the commenters here. From the link: "the total compute cost it would take to replicate the paper" It's not Google's cost. Google's cost is of course entirely different. It's the cost for the author if he were to rent the resources to replicate the paper. For Google, all of it is running at a "best effort" resource tier, grabbing available resources when not requested by higher priorit…

This is the side effect of underutilized capital and it’s present in many cases.

For example, if YOU want to rent a backhoe to do some yard rearrangement it’s going to cost you.

But Bob who owns BackHoesInc has them sitting around all the time when they’re not being rented or used; he can rearrange his yard wholesale or almost free.

Re: Calculating the cost of a Google DeepMind paper

#16

Post by punnerud »

arcade79 wrote: post #11

A lot of misunderstandings among the commenters here. From the link: "the total compute cost it would take to replicate the paper" It's not Google's cost. Google's cost is of course entirely different. It's the cost for the author if he were to rent the resources to replicate the paper. For Google, all of it is running at a "best effort" resource tier, grabbing available resources when not requested by higher priorit…

Can others also buy the “best effort” tier?

If the job could easily run for weeks, even when you could buy your way for doing it in a day.

Then have a bidding on this “best effort” resource, where they factor in electricity at any given time

Re: Calculating the cost of a Google DeepMind paper

#17

Post by v3ss0n »

punnerud wrote: post #16
arcade79 wrote: post #11

A lot of misunderstandings among the commenters here. From the link: "the total compute cost it would take to replicate the paper" It's not Google's cost. Google's cost is of course entirely different. It's the cost for the author if he were to rent the resources to replicate the paper. For Google, all of it is running at a "best effort" resource tier, grabbing available resources when not requested by higher priorit…

Can others also buy the “best effort” tier? If the job could easily run for weeks, even when you could buy your way for doing it in a day. Then have a bidding on this “best effort” resource, where they factor in electricity at any given time

Sure,.land a job there, work the way all up against the cooperate bs and toxicity and you can get best effort tier.

Those effort needs to be added in the cost calculation too.

Re: Calculating the cost of a Google DeepMind paper

#18

Post by v3ss0n »

punnerud wrote: post #16
arcade79 wrote: post #11

A lot of misunderstandings among the commenters here. From the link: "the total compute cost it would take to replicate the paper" It's not Google's cost. Google's cost is of course entirely different. It's the cost for the author if he were to rent the resources to replicate the paper. For Google, all of it is running at a "best effort" resource tier, grabbing available resources when not requested by higher priorit…

Can others also buy the “best effort” tier? If the job could easily run for weeks, even when you could buy your way for doing it in a day. Then have a bidding on this “best effort” resource, where they factor in electricity at any given time

Sure,.land a job there, work the way all up against the cooperate bs and toxicity and you can get best effort tier.

Those effort needs to be added in the cost calculation too

Re: Calculating the cost of a Google DeepMind paper

#19

Post by curt15 »

punnerud wrote: post #16
arcade79 wrote: post #11

A lot of misunderstandings among the commenters here. From the link: "the total compute cost it would take to replicate the paper" It's not Google's cost. Google's cost is of course entirely different. It's the cost for the author if he were to rent the resources to replicate the paper. For Google, all of it is running at a "best effort" resource tier, grabbing available resources when not requested by higher priorit…

Can others also buy the “best effort” tier? If the job could easily run for weeks, even when you could buy your way for doing it in a day. Then have a bidding on this “best effort” resource, where they factor in electricity at any given time

Is the "best effort" tier similar to AWS spot instances?

Re: Calculating the cost of a Google DeepMind paper

#20

Post by injuly »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #8

This is calculation is pretty pointless and the title is flat out wrong. It also gets lost in finer details while totally missing the bigger picture. After all, the original paper written by people either working for Google or at Google. So you can safely assume they used Google resources. That means they wouldn't have used H100s, but Google TPUs. Since they design and own these TPUs, you can also safely assume that…

> This is calculation is pretty pointless and the title is flat out wrong.

No, it's not. The author clearly states in the very first paragraph that this is the price it would take them to reproduce the results.

Nowhere in the article (or the title) have they implied that this is how much Google spent.

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