>some algorithmic advance will enhance LLMs by orders of magnitude I would worry...

krasin · on May 1, 2024

Actually, that would be fantastic for NVIDIA shares;

1. A new architecture would make all/most of these upcoming Transformer accelerators obsolete => back to GPUs.

2. Higher performance LLMs on GPUs => we can speed up LLMs with 1T+ parameters. So, LLMs become more useful, so more of GPUs would be purchased.

mindcrime · on May 1, 2024

1. A new architecture would make all/most of these upcoming Transformer accelerators obsolete => back to GPUs.

There's no guarantee that that is what would happen. The right (or wrong, depending on your POV) algorithmic breakthrough might make GPU's obsolete for AI, by making CPU's (or analog computing units, or DSP's, or "other") the preferred platform to run AI.

edmara · on May 2, 2024

Assuming there is a development that makes GPUs obsolete, I think it's safe to assume that what will replace them at scale will still take the form dedicated AI card/rack

1. Tight integration necessary for fundamental compute constraints like memory latency.

2. Economies of scale

3. Opportunity cost to AI orgs. Meta, OpenAI etc want 50k h100s to arrive in shipping container and plug in so they can focus on their value-add.

Everyone will have to readjust to this paradigm. Even if next get AI runs better on CPU, Intel won't suddenly be signing contracts to sell 1,000,000 xeons and 1,000,000 motherboards etc

Also, Nvidia have 25bn cash in hand and almost 10 billion yearly r&d spend. They've been an AI-first company for over a decade now, they're more prepared to pivot than anyone else

Edit: nearly forgot - Nvidia can issue 5% new stocks and raise 100B like it's nothing.