GPU rumors 2021

[smatovic]

For Lc0 it looks like the 4090 will still be king for the next 12 months then.

Yep, I think the Turing RTX 2080 TI is still a good shot in regard of FP16 performance.

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Srdja

[towforce]

For Lc0 it looks like the 4090 will still be king for the next 12 months then.

Hmmm... a bit costly (link): maybe I'll wait until I can beat the programs that don't need this before investing (this will be quite a long wait!)

[smatovic]

...and for an RTX 4090 you need the right surrounding

https://www.caseking.de/pc-systeme/high-end-gaming-pcs

--
Srdja

[smatovic]

- CPU-GPU coherent memory
With Nvidia moving into the CPU realm we have a tight coupling of CPU-GPU arch
for HPC incoming. IBM dropped NVLink support in their POWER10 series, so all
HPC-GPU vendors will come up with a solution for coherent memory between CPU
and GPU, maybe an open standard like CXL over PCIe, maybe something proprietary
like NVLink and Infinity Fabric, unknown if and how this descents to the gamer
gpu market.

--
Srdja

...now with AI as silicon arms-race, we see Amazon, Microsoft and Google as cloud provider with own, ARM based, CPUs and own AI inference/training chips rising, a coupling of cloud provider+CPU+AI chips, interesting times.

--
Srdja

Ah, come on, to make the list complete, there is:

Amazon AWS Graviton CPU + Inferentia + Trainium AI accelerators:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWS_Graviton
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/aws/wh ... -anthropic

Microsoft Cobalt CPU + Maia AI accelerator:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/micro ... cpu-custom

Google Axion CPU + TPU AI accelerator:
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ ... -based-cpu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor_Processing_Unit

Interesting game IMO, Intel, AMD, Nvidia vs. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, dunno
what IBM and Oracle have in hands in regard of AI accelerators, there are still
the POWER10 and SPARC processors. Still wait to see a breakthrough with RISC-V
chips in consumer and datacenter markets.

See also:
China boosts in silicon...
viewtopic.php?t=72566

...and, Apple is not a cloud provider, they have own CPU+GPU+NPU chips in their own platform, but it remains open if they will join the AI cloud race with own silicon or go into a partnership.

--
Srdja

[smatovic]

....and, datacenters are running out of juice....cos of AI GPU chichi:

Irish Power Crunch Could Be Prompting AWS To Ration Compute Resources
https://slashdot.org/story/24/04/12/094 ... -resources

Elon Musk Predicts Electricity Shortage in Two Years
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/23/ ... -two-years

[...]
I can't emphasize enough: we need more electricity
[...]
However much electricity you think you need, more than that is needed.

--
Srdja

[smatovic]

[...]
...and, Apple is not a cloud provider, they have own CPU+GPU+NPU chips in their own platform, but it remains open if they will join the AI cloud race with own silicon or go into a partnership.

--
Srdja

Apple Reportedly Developing Its Own Custom Silicon For AI Servers
https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/04/ ... ai-servers

Apple is said to be developing its own AI server processor using TSMC's 3nm process, targeting mass production by the second half of 2025. According to a post by the Weibo user known as "Phone Chip Expert," Apple has ambitious plans to design its own artificial intelligence server processor. The user, who claims to have 25 years of experience in the integrated circuit industry, including work on Intel's Pentium processors, suggests this processor will be manufactured using TSMC's 3nm node.

Apple's purported move toward developing a specialist AI server processor is reflective of the company's ongoing strategy to vertically integrate its supply chain. By designing its own server chips, Apple can tailor hardware specifically to its software needs, potentially leading to more powerful and efficient technologies. Apple could use its own AI processors to enhance the performance of its data centers and future AI tools that rely on the cloud. While Apple is rumored to be prioritizing on-device processing for many of its upcoming AI tools, it is inevitable that some operations will have to occur in the cloud. By the time the custom processor could be integrated into operational servers in late 2025, Apple's new AI strategy should be well underway.

But honey, can it play chess?

--
Srdja

[towforce]

Apple is said to be developing its own AI server processor using TSMC's 3nm process, targeting mass production by the second half of 2025. According to a post by the Weibo user known as "Phone Chip Expert," Apple has ambitious plans to design its own artificial intelligence server processor. The user, who claims to have 25 years of experience in the integrated circuit industry, including work on Intel's Pentium processors, suggests this processor will be manufactured using TSMC's 3nm node.

Apple's purported move toward developing a specialist AI server processor is reflective of the company's ongoing strategy to vertically integrate its supply chain. By designing its own server chips, Apple can tailor hardware specifically to its software needs, potentially leading to more powerful and efficient technologies. Apple could use its own AI processors to enhance the performance of its data centers and future AI tools that rely on the cloud. While Apple is rumored to be prioritizing on-device processing for many of its upcoming AI tools, it is inevitable that some operations will have to occur in the cloud. By the time the custom processor could be integrated into operational servers in late 2025, Apple's new AI strategy should be well underway.

For Google, "Spend lots of money developing AI" is actually a really good business strategy. There may be others this applies to as well.

For Apple, it feels like a "Help me, I'm lost!" kind of strategy. Maybe a bit of AI to help people use the products would be a good thing - but the quoted text above reads as, "We have no idea what to do with all this money the fanboys keep sending us."

[wickedpotus]

For Google, "Spend lots of money developing AI" is actually a really good business strategy. There may be others this applies to as well.

For Apple, it feels like a "Help me, I'm lost!" kind of strategy. Maybe a bit of AI to help people use the products would be a good thing - but the quoted text above reads as, "We have no idea what to do with all this money the fanboys keep sending us."

Perhaps the AI could assist their users in leaving the closed, overpriced, and dumbed-down ecosystem.

[smatovic]

Apple To Power AI Tools With In-House Server Chips This Year
https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/05/ ... -this-year

Apple will deliver some of its upcoming AI features this year via data centers equipped with its own in-house processors, part of a sweeping effort to infuse its devices with AI capabilities. From a report: The company is placing high-end chips -- similar to ones it designed for the Mac -- in cloud-computing servers designed to process the most advanced AI tasks coming to Apple devices, according to people familiar with the matter. Simpler AI-related features will be processed directly on iPhones, iPads and Macs, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plan is still under wraps. The move is part of Apple's much-anticipated push into generative artificial intelligence -- the technology behind ChatGPT and other popular tools. The company is playing catch-up with Big Tech rivals in the area but is poised to lay out an ambitious AI strategy at its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 10. Apple's plan to use its own chips and process AI tasks in the cloud was hatched about three years ago, but the company accelerated the timeline after the AI craze -- fueled by OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini -- forced it to move more quickly. The first AI server chips will be the M2 Ultra, which was launched last year as part of the Mac Pro and Mac Studio computers, though the company is already eyeing future versions based on the M4 chip

Generative AI is really taking off these days, now it is about the so called "Magnificent Seven":

https://stockanalysis.com/list/magnificent-seven/
https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/nvda/market-cap/

Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Tesla and Nvidia.

I like to call them the seven heads of the beast

--
Srdja

[towforce]

Generative AI is really taking off these days, now it is about the so called "Magnificent Seven":

https://stockanalysis.com/list/magnificent-seven/
https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/nvda/market-cap/

Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Tesla and Nvidia.

I like to call them the seven heads of the beast

To be fair to Apple, they were the first to offer a voice assistant on their devices - link.

Not sure what Facebook and Tesla are doing on the list? I'm guessing that Amazon is on the list because it's offering generative AI via AWS? Also, of course, the Echo - the first smart speaker.