undefined | Better HN

0 pointsdragonwriter1y ago0 comments

A head start is a moat iff you can't move easily from the leader to a competitor that catches up qualitatively; nvidia’s headstart against AMD is a moat to the extent that you can't just take the software written against NVidia GPUs and run it on AMD if AMD catches up. (That is, being currently ahead isn't a moat, but it can impose switching costs which are.)

Taking code that runs against one hosted LLM and running it against a different backend LLM is... not generally a big deal. So OpenAI being ahead—in the core model, at least—is just being ahead, its not a moat.

0 comments

YetAnotherNick1y ago

ROCM is close to being perfected and I think in few years and some investment you can use it directly to run 99% software written in CUDA with similar performance.

klelatti1y ago

Since 2007 Nvidia has built with CUDA and compatible hardware

- a large and growing ecosystem

- a massive installed base of backwards compatible hardware

- the ability to massively scale delivery of new systems

- and lots lots more

They now have scale that enables them to continue to invest at a level that no competition can do.

None of these are easily reproduced.

As per SemiAnalysis AMD in late 2024 can’t get essential software working reliably out of the box.

It’s easy to say AMD ‘is close to perfecting ROCM’ the reality of competing with Nvidia is much harder.

YetAnotherNick1y ago

It's hard but not $3T hard. AMD has consistently underinvested in their software. If they invest double digit million to make installation and usage of drivers and ROCM smoother I highly doubt they can't acheive it.

There are open source projects volunteer run projects[1] that are better than official AMD implementation in many ways.

[1]: https://github.com/CHIP-SPV/chipStar/

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsdragonwriter1y ago0 comments

0 comments

YetAnotherNick1y ago

ROCM is close to being perfected and I think in few years and some investment you can use it directly to run 99% software written in CUDA with similar performance.

klelatti1y ago

Since 2007 Nvidia has built with CUDA and compatible hardware

- a large and growing ecosystem

- a massive installed base of backwards compatible hardware

- the ability to massively scale delivery of new systems

- and lots lots more

They now have scale that enables them to continue to invest at a level that no competition can do.

None of these are easily reproduced.

As per SemiAnalysis AMD in late 2024 can’t get essential software working reliably out of the box.

It’s easy to say AMD ‘is close to perfecting ROCM’ the reality of competing with Nvidia is much harder.

YetAnotherNick1y ago

There are open source projects volunteer run projects[1] that are better than official AMD implementation in many ways.

[1]: https://github.com/CHIP-SPV/chipStar/

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse