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Cerebras CS-4

cerebras.ai

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Re: Cerebras CS-4

#51

Post by jryle70 »

rvz wrote: post #14
9cb14c1ec0 wrote: post #2

Just a reminder for everyone that we are only several years and 3 or 4 iterations into hardware being optimized for LLMs. We should all expect orders of magnitude improvement in speed and/or cost over the next 5 years. Then we can have fun conversations about "unlimited" "intelligence" and about what the price wars and profit margins of consumer AI products are when your average ChatGPT user costs the company $0.10 p…

Congratulations! You have just realized that the AI data center build out is a total scam, built on both the insurmountable trillions of debt, and the assumption that only GPUs are all we need to continue scaling. There exist other AI accelerators (TPUs, ASICs) that perfectly exceed the throughput that LLMs need to scale as well. But the true solution is more software optimizations. There's a tiny handful of them but…

Huh, why I'm not surprised that HN is full of opinions confidently stated without any numbers or resources to back up?

> built on both the insurmountable trillions of debt, and the assumption that only GPUs are all we need to continue scaling.

Insurmountable according to whom? And who assume that only GPUs are all we need to continue scaling? Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and OpenAI, all have or plan custom non-GPU AI chips. Do they plan to use them not for scaling?

Re: Cerebras CS-4

#53

Post by wren6991 »

jm4 wrote: post #20
algoth1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they had ask Claude it would probably look like this: Introducing the all new Cerebras CS-4, a revolutionary rack-scale solution that delivers up to 30x faster inference compared to GPUs, enhanced economics, and a simple path to load-bearing hyper scale capacity.

That's unusually honest and the sharpest thing in this thread.

You're underselling it, and here's why.

Re: Cerebras CS-4

#54

Post by georgeecollins »

blovescoffee wrote: post #27
rvz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations! You have just realized that the AI data center build out is a total scam, built on both the insurmountable trillions of debt, and the assumption that only GPUs are all we need to continue scaling. There exist other AI accelerators (TPUs, ASICs) that perfectly exceed the throughput that LLMs need to scale as well. But the true solution is more software optimizations. There's a tiny handful of them but…

TPUs and ASICs run in data centers too. Your argument only holds true if there's some satisfied limit to demand for inference. If not, data centers will continue to spring up to host more and more agents. Even if agents were running on hardware and software as efficient as the human brain, its conceivable we want trillions of them running at any given time which would require data center scale.

Everything has some satisfied limit to demand, often depending on the price. If you assume there will never be any satisfied limit to demand for inference at any price you can justify any investment.

Re: Cerebras CS-4

#56

Post by ttul »

aneryu wrote: post #52

It would be even better if a version available to individual users were released soon.

I’ll get that 250kW home power service dropped in next week!

Re: Cerebras CS-4

#57

Post by gpm »

aneryu wrote: post #52

It would be even better if a version available to individual users were released soon.

They do offer API services to individual users... though with a set of models that makes it unlikely that you want to use it. They are promising Qwen 3.8 27B any day now though*.

if you have the money as an "individual user" to purchase one of their racks... save your money and retire.

* Actually they sent out an email claiming they already have it, but I don't seem to have access, they're promising to release it to the "shared tier" any day now.

Re: Cerebras CS-4

#58

Post by petra »

api wrote: post #3
9cb14c1ec0 wrote: post #2

Just a reminder for everyone that we are only several years and 3 or 4 iterations into hardware being optimized for LLMs. We should all expect orders of magnitude improvement in speed and/or cost over the next 5 years. Then we can have fun conversations about "unlimited" "intelligence" and about what the price wars and profit margins of consumer AI products are when your average ChatGPT user costs the company $0.10 p…

This is part of why I think the data center build-out is a bubble. We've barely scratched the surface when it comes to hardware optimization. We'll see exponential improvements in energy efficiency and speed over the next decade. Exponential, not linear. GPUs really aren't that great for AI. They just happen to be the best chips we have in mass production right now for this work load, and it takes time to field new d…

I wonder: in world where inference is cheap, how many engineering agents that use simulation as their feedback we will use?

In the scenario, engineering everything becomes so easy - so why not optimize everything? every component, every product, every system?

And maybe llm's could invent. So even more to simulate. And simulation is inherently compute-heavy.

So unless there are some other bottlenecks, we'll use a lot of simulation servers.

Re: Cerebras CS-4

#59

Post by ttul »

walrus01 wrote: post #35
xattt wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume per rack? Can you imagine something radiating that much energy into a space in your home?

It's mandatory liquid cooling, so it's meant to be attached to a specialized liquid cooling loop that gets the heat outside the building. This is far beyond the practical maximums of like 10 to 15kW per 44U cabinet front to rear air cooling for 'regular' rackmount server stuff.

Indeed. You need 45 to 60 liters per second of cooling water flowing over a Cerebras wafer every minute to keep it under 90C. And that’s assuming the water leaves at 90C…

More realistically, you need much more cooling water.

Re: Cerebras CS-4

#60

Post by fragmede »

gpm wrote: post #57
aneryu wrote: post #52

It would be even better if a version available to individual users were released soon.

They do offer API services to individual users... though with a set of models that makes it unlikely that you want to use it. They are promising Qwen 3.8 27B any day now though*. if you have the money as an "individual user" to purchase one of their racks... save your money and retire. * Actually they sent out an email claiming they already have it, but I don't seem to have access, they're promising to release it to…

> save your money and retire.

Now that this hypothetical person has retired, what are they gonna do all day? Just sit on the beach and drink Mai Tais? If that's what they wanna do, sure, but nerds gonna nerd, and if I had that kind of money to retire on, I'd totally buy some ridiculously expensive AI box for fun.

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