alt Hacker NewsRouters don't do productive work.
This boom is only superficially like the dot com bubble.
There are absolutely parallels.
But, a GPU that can help me write emails, code, articles, etc. has intrinsic value that a Cisco router simply didn't provide.
I don't believe GPUs are a new asset as Jensen Huang claims. (His take seems very bubble-ish.) But, I feel these elevated prices are going to last until production catches up.
Replies
Peanuts99 • today at 7:09 PM
Without routers, your email isn't going anywhere, it doesn't matter who wrote it.
kmeisthax • today at 5:43 PM
>Routers don't do productive work.
I'm sorry, what?! Communications is a valuable thing. How is all that AI slop going to hit the Internet if there's no routers?
If you're growing onions in the backyard, you don't need a router.
If you're writing emails, you're gonna need to send them through a router or two before someone reads them.
> I don't believe GPUs are a new asset as Jensen Huang claims.
He sells GPU's, so taken in context, he's promoting the financing of GPU's, by anyone who is listening to his sales pitch. He travels in CEO circles, so, he's talking to other CEO's, and the banking industry.
The phrasing of it also directly pushes back against the articles accusing the AI industry of circularly financing itself to inflate everyones balance sheet.
And the other thing this idea of it being an asset that you invest in, like a house presumably, is that it primes all of us for 2 future realities: price increases and minimal performance gains ( "its useful for longer so finance it" ).
As to economic value proposition to any individual or group, it boils down to how they are going to use it to recoup the expense.
Don't just take the sales guys word for it, ever.
There have been many videos lately, on whats happening in the automotive market. The industry has been adding more and more tech, to the point where its now financially extractive via mandatory dealer interaction aka fees, and people are becomming fed up with it all, wanting something simpler for less money.
Translate this to the big fat GPU card industry, and how long is it before AMD/Intel add just enough AI ops into every CPU that noone cares anymore and they start asking themselves "Why am I buying 96GB of RAM and a GPU, and 96GB RAM and a CPU ? I'm buying ram twice ! It's a conspiracy !"
Unified architectures seem to be inevitable, GPU's would no longer need seperate ram, then shrinkflation is gonna hit your video card, and you're gonna pay GPU+RAM prices for just a GPU. The upside to this is that you could fit more GPU's in your box and they won't need 2.5 slots each. For now, they are hoping the DGX Spark type boxes fill the market demand, and allow them to sell higher priced products. Unified architectures would dent demand for those.
Just my 2 cents on it all. Enjoy the ride.