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TPUs vs. GPUs and why Google is positioned to win AI race in the long term

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Re: TPUs vs. GPUs and why Google is positioned to win AI race in the long term

#2
A question I don't see addressed in all these articles: what prevents Nvidia from doing the same thing and iterating on their more general-purpose GPU towards a more focused TPU-like chip as well, if that turns out to be what the market really wants.

Re: TPUs vs. GPUs and why Google is positioned to win AI race in the long term

#5
post #2

A question I don't see addressed in all these articles: what prevents Nvidia from doing the same thing and iterating on their more general-purpose GPU towards a more focused TPU-like chip as well, if that turns out to be what the market really wants.

the entire organisation has been built over the last 25 years to produce GPUs

turning a giant lumbering ship around is not easy

Re: TPUs vs. GPUs and why Google is positioned to win AI race in the long term

#6
post #2

A question I don't see addressed in all these articles: what prevents Nvidia from doing the same thing and iterating on their more general-purpose GPU towards a more focused TPU-like chip as well, if that turns out to be what the market really wants.

> what prevents Nvidia from doing the same thing and iterating on their more general-purpose GPU towards a more focused TPU-like chip as well, if that turns out to be what the market really wants.

Nothing prevents them per se, but it would risk cannibalising their highly profitable (IIRC 50% margin) higher end cards.

Re: TPUs vs. GPUs and why Google is positioned to win AI race in the long term

#7
post #5
post #2

A question I don't see addressed in all these articles: what prevents Nvidia from doing the same thing and iterating on their more general-purpose GPU towards a more focused TPU-like chip as well, if that turns out to be what the market really wants.

the entire organisation has been built over the last 25 years to produce GPUs turning a giant lumbering ship around is not easy

For sure, I did not mean to imply they could do it quickly or easily, but I have to assume that internally at Nvidia there's already work happening to figure out "can we make chips that are better for AI and cheaper/easier to make than GPUs?"

Re: TPUs vs. GPUs and why Google is positioned to win AI race in the long term

#9
post #2

A question I don't see addressed in all these articles: what prevents Nvidia from doing the same thing and iterating on their more general-purpose GPU towards a more focused TPU-like chip as well, if that turns out to be what the market really wants.

Nothing in principle. But Huang probably doesn't believe in hyper specializing their chips at this stage because it's unlikely that the compute demands of 2035 are something we can predict today. For a counterpoint, Jim Keller took Tenstorrent in the opposite direction. Their chips are also very efficient, but even more general purpose than NVIDIA chips.

Re: TPUs vs. GPUs and why Google is positioned to win AI race in the long term

#10
post #2

A question I don't see addressed in all these articles: what prevents Nvidia from doing the same thing and iterating on their more general-purpose GPU towards a more focused TPU-like chip as well, if that turns out to be what the market really wants.

That's exactly what Nvidia is doing with tensor cores.
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