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Nvidia takes $1B stake in Nokia

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Re: Nvidia takes $1B stake in Nokia

#171

Post by hopelite »

nrmitchi wrote: post #75

Nvidia seems to be operating more like a sovereign wealth fund than a traditional business. They have a very-in-demand product, that is not likely to last forever, and is getting their fingers in as many pies as possible with the money and influence while they have it.

I’m not sure how you mean “… very-in-demand product, that is not likely to last forever…” is an analogue for a sovereign wealth fund, but there is also the issue of one interpretation of what you said very much providing an avenue for sustainability; that all the GPUs for all the AI systems are all going to burn up and/or become outdated in a mere 3-5 years, prompting repurchases.

I’m aware there are some efforts in play to offer alternatives to GPUs and compete with Nvidia, but I don’t see a path for how that actually happens in the near term with Nvidia's market dominance, short of revolutionary technological breakthrough or possibly even anti-trusting Nvidia.

I suspect what you mean is the circular business practices that we’ve been seeing, seemingly starting with Nvidia for some reason. Is that the aspect you are comparing to some sovereign wealth funds that through simply massive scale, they are capturing the whole lifetime cycle in some places and domains?

Re: Nvidia takes $1B stake in Nokia

#172

Post by Cyph0n »

mixdup wrote: post #80
pavelstoev wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nokia also makes complex backbone carrier-grade network switches based on the Intellectual Property portfolio they acquired from Nortel.

That kind of stuff is the closest that they would come to compete with the others cited. They're all trying to get into datacenter gear, but Cisco specifically has gotten out of various levels of service provider network gear (they sold off all their cable network stuff, for example) which is where Nokia, Ericsson, etc all make their bread and butter

Cisco is still in the SP networking space, but they’ve been pushing heavily into datacenter and core routers generally (vs. edge which are more common in SP networks).

Granted, I only worked as a lowly dev in the Cisco SP routing team, and I haven’t been keeping up to speed with their work.

Re: Nvidia takes $1B stake in Nokia

#173

Post by ratelimitsteve »

reactordev wrote: post #162
mprovost wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but they're using this fund to prop up their core business (and share price) by artificially creating demand for their own products. Most of the money that they invest comes back to them when these companies buy GPUs.

Strategic Enablement Yup, give them $1B so they can build out AI DC’s stocked with $1B of Nvidia chips.

buy in, let them use your money to buy your product back from you, then if you think they'll actually succeed you make money and if not you can slowly dump that stock back onto the market and end up ahead. you've basically manufactured a customer at that point.

Re: Nvidia takes $1B stake in Nokia

#176

Post by klysm »

nrmitchi wrote: post #75

Nvidia seems to be operating more like a sovereign wealth fund than a traditional business. They have a very-in-demand product, that is not likely to last forever, and is getting their fingers in as many pies as possible with the money and influence while they have it.

I guess it’s better than just doing share buybacks?

Re: Nvidia takes $1B stake in Nokia

#177

Post by fadedsignal »

mprovost wrote: post #148
nrmitchi wrote: post #75

Nvidia seems to be operating more like a sovereign wealth fund than a traditional business. They have a very-in-demand product, that is not likely to last forever, and is getting their fingers in as many pies as possible with the money and influence while they have it.

Yes but they're using this fund to prop up their core business (and share price) by artificially creating demand for their own products. Most of the money that they invest comes back to them when these companies buy GPUs.

I think this will continue. They can't change 3GPP's vision with just Nokia. They need to bribe other companies. Ericsson is the other big vendor. I think there is a possibility of that. However, Huawei is impossible. Who is gonna provide a GPU to them? Therefore, they simply can't just put a GPU on every base station around the world.

Re: Nvidia takes $1B stake in Nokia

#178

Post by jonfw »

buran77 wrote: post #169
scotty79 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say they are artificially creating the demand. They artificatially create capacity to make a purchase by enabling their customers to pay with ownership of their business rather than with money. It's just an alternative financing scheme.

> They artificatially create capacity to make a purchase If the company did not intend to purchase anything but Nvidia used the investment to "incentivize" a purchase then this is artificially creating demand where there used to be none. It's very different from Nvidia allowing a company to purchase Nvidia products that they already wanted to purchase but pay with stock.

Are you implying that 1B investment gives Nvidia control over Nokia procurement?

Re: Nvidia takes $1B stake in Nokia

#179

Post by signatoremo »

fun444555 wrote: post #100
dtagames wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demand for chips has only increased since their invention and never gone down, much less "to zero." Chips are a critical part of the tech business for the foreseeable future, regardless of what happens with AI or any other use case for them. They're raw material for computing, and computing use only goes up.

Man, I feel old. I remember feeling this way during dot-com bubble. The few months of unemployment grounded me. Anyway, better positioned this time. History is a good teacher.

Feeling which way? Demand for chips are much higher than it was at the peak of the dot-com bubble. That was a painful period, but only a blip in the history. Everything considered “hype” back then has become reality, at a scale that was beyond any dot-com era expectation.

Re: Nvidia takes $1B stake in Nokia

#180

Post by NekkoDroid »

kumarvvr wrote: post #157
ayewo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The next logical step would be to get into CPUs, to become a fully integrated computing solutions provider. They already tried it 5 years ago [1][2] but it was promptly blocked by regulators. [1]: https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-to-acquire-arm-for... [2]: HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24464807

They were prevented from buying out ARM. They can always license their IP and make products out of that. Some of their systems most likely have such chips already in them.

It wouldn't surprise me if they are looking into making their own RISC-V CPUs, since their coprocessor already is build on it already. They also are porting CUDA to RISC-V (specifically RVA23 is their minimum supported) so it would somewhat make sense to do it.
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