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Vsora Jotunn-8 5nm European inference chip

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Re: Vsora Jotunn-8 5nm European inference chip

#51

Post by Fnoord »

yaantc wrote: post #33
numbers_guy wrote: post #31

Does anyone know why they brand it an "inference chip"? Is it something at the hardware level that makes is unsuitable for training, or is it simply that the toolchain for training is massively more complicated to program?

Very simplified, AI workloads need compute and communications and compute dominates inference, while communications dominate training. Most start-ups innovate on the compute side, whereas the techno needed for state of the art communications is not common, and very low-level: plenty of analog concerns. The domain is dominated by NVidia and Broadcom today. This is why digital start-ups tend to focus on inference. They…

They also have the 'tyr 4' [1].

It doesn't have to compete on price 1:1. Ever since Trump took office, the Europeans woke up on their dependence on USA who they no longer regard as a reliable partner. This counts for defense industry, but also for critical infrastructure, including IT. The European alternatives are expected to cost something.

[1] https://vsora.com/products/tyr/

Re: Vsora Jotunn-8 5nm European inference chip

#52

Post by [deleted] »

vlorr wrote: post #28
ano-ther wrote: post #17

I don’t get the negativity. The specs look impressive. It is always good to have competition. They announced tapeout in October with planned dev boards next year. Vaporware is when things don’t appear, not when they are on their way (it takes some time for hardware). It’s also strategically important for Europe to have its own supply. The current and last US administration have both threatened to limit supply of AI c…

The negativity doesn’t make much sense. The specs are strong, and the chip already taped out in October that’s a concrete milestone, not vaporware. Hardware of this class always takes months between tape-out and dev boards. Official announcement: https://vsora.com/vsora-announces-tape-out-of-game-changing-... Multiple independent sources confirmed the tape-out: EE Times: https://www.eetimes.eu/vsora-tapes-out-ai-infe…

[deleted]

Re: Vsora Jotunn-8 5nm European inference chip

#53

Post by embedding-shape »

vlorr wrote: post #28
ano-ther wrote: post #17

I don’t get the negativity. The specs look impressive. It is always good to have competition. They announced tapeout in October with planned dev boards next year. Vaporware is when things don’t appear, not when they are on their way (it takes some time for hardware). It’s also strategically important for Europe to have its own supply. The current and last US administration have both threatened to limit supply of AI c…

The negativity doesn’t make much sense. The specs are strong, and the chip already taped out in October that’s a concrete milestone, not vaporware. Hardware of this class always takes months between tape-out and dev boards. Official announcement: https://vsora.com/vsora-announces-tape-out-of-game-changing-... Multiple independent sources confirmed the tape-out: EE Times: https://www.eetimes.eu/vsora-tapes-out-ai-infe…

> Calling this vaporware makes no sense: tape-out + published roadmap = real, not slides.

I agree that the comments here are surprisingly superficial in their complaints, but I guess it the typical bike-shedding, people don't have technical points to nitpick or the experience to judge the actual product, so from their US-based point of view, they find something else to hook on to, even when there are facts like concrete partnerships making it clear it isn't vaporware, they just have to say something.

Re: Vsora Jotunn-8 5nm European inference chip

#54

Post by Fnoord »

embedding-shape wrote: post #48
jack_tripper wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don’t get the negativity. Where do you see the negativity? I don't believe labeling healthy skepticism and criticism as negativity to farm artificial sympathy in retaliation, does any good to anyone. Humans have pattern recognition capabilities for a reason, and if a company is triggering that in them, then it's best expressed why(probably because they saw this MO before and got burned) instead of just cheerleadin…

> Where do you see the negativity? First comment: "Looks expensive, I'm guessing" Second comment: "Probably vaporware" 6th comment: "They haven't disclosed any release date, Lots of chip startups start as this kind of vaporware" (they did literally just enter fabrication it seems) 10th comment: "So far, they just talk about it." Maybe it looks differently now, after 14 hours since the submission was made, but initial…

If it was submitted 14 hours ago that is start of night in Europe (the target market). So the 9-5 target market was mostly asleep, while USA was getting home from work. China was getting awake. If the article was submitted 5-6 hours earlier or 7-8 hours later, the outcome would've differed.

Since it seems like a French company, I can think of various European customers who would be interested in using their hardware, or even investing in this company. For starters, government, defense industry, IT (including infosec). European defense industry is a goldmine right now, the sky is the limit.

Re: Vsora Jotunn-8 5nm European inference chip

#56

Post by nickserv »

embedding-shape wrote: post #50
postexitus wrote: post #23

Even if it's not vapourware, the website makes it look like one. Just look at those two graphs titled "Jotunn 8 Outperforms the Market" and "More Speed For the Bucks" (!) ; WTH?

The people who build landing pages for hardware startups are usually (almost always) not the same people who design and build the actual hardware, for better or worse. A lot of the times, it's a outsourced web design agency who receive a brief, often written by business people, and finally the website is reviewed by business people, with some feedback from technical people who complain about the graphs, accuracy and…

Not just hardware startups, alas.

Re: Vsora Jotunn-8 5nm European inference chip

#58

Post by postexitus »

svantana wrote: post #47
postexitus wrote: post #23

Even if it's not vapourware, the website makes it look like one. Just look at those two graphs titled "Jotunn 8 Outperforms the Market" and "More Speed For the Bucks" (!) ; WTH?

The silly verbiage can be excused but not the graphs with completely unlabeled data points, IMO.

Yep that's what I mean - looks like AI slop to me.

Re: Vsora Jotunn-8 5nm European inference chip

#59

Post by postexitus »

embedding-shape wrote: post #50
postexitus wrote: post #23

Even if it's not vapourware, the website makes it look like one. Just look at those two graphs titled "Jotunn 8 Outperforms the Market" and "More Speed For the Bucks" (!) ; WTH?

The people who build landing pages for hardware startups are usually (almost always) not the same people who design and build the actual hardware, for better or worse. A lot of the times, it's a outsourced web design agency who receive a brief, often written by business people, and finally the website is reviewed by business people, with some feedback from technical people who complain about the graphs, accuracy and…

That's not an excuse. This company has more than a few handful of employees. Somebody saw those graphs without units, labels, tags and approved them. Have the CEO never opened their own webpage once and scrolled down?

Re: Vsora Jotunn-8 5nm European inference chip

#60

Post by jack_tripper »

embedding-shape wrote: post #48
jack_tripper wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don’t get the negativity. Where do you see the negativity? I don't believe labeling healthy skepticism and criticism as negativity to farm artificial sympathy in retaliation, does any good to anyone. Humans have pattern recognition capabilities for a reason, and if a company is triggering that in them, then it's best expressed why(probably because they saw this MO before and got burned) instead of just cheerleadin…

> Where do you see the negativity? First comment: "Looks expensive, I'm guessing" Second comment: "Probably vaporware" 6th comment: "They haven't disclosed any release date, Lots of chip startups start as this kind of vaporware" (they did literally just enter fabrication it seems) 10th comment: "So far, they just talk about it." Maybe it looks differently now, after 14 hours since the submission was made, but initial…

Again, where's the negativity in the examples you posted? Those seem like valid points to me.
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