I speak loads about Nvidia. And for good purpose…
Simply final month, the corporate posted a $44 billion quarter — one of many largest within the historical past of U.S. tech firms.
Nvidia’s knowledge middle enterprise alone made extra money than many Fortune 500 firms.
The corporate is the market chief in cutting-edge AI know-how. And when Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang speaks, it usually leads to the information.
However this week, certainly one of Nvidia’s greatest rivals was the one making headlines.
AMD’s CEO Lisa Su turned heads on the firm’s “Advancing AI” occasion when she mentioned she expects the marketplace for AI compute infrastructure to soar previous $500 billion within the subsequent three years.
Supply: Wikimedia Commons
However she didn’t cease there.
Regardless of Nvidia being the 800-pound gorilla on this house, Su recommended AMD has an actual shot at taking among the AI large’s market share.
Primarily based on what AMD showcased throughout the occasion, I consider she is perhaps proper…
AMD’s Menace to Nvidia’s AI Dominance
Su went on to disclose a brand new chip from AMD referred to as the MI355X that’s designed to go toe-to-toe with Nvidia’s industry-leading AI processors.
The MI355X is AMD’s most aggressive AI chip but.
Supply: AMD
It’s a dense, high-performance accelerator that’s constructed to deal with the sorts of large workloads firms like OpenAI, Meta and Microsoft demand.
AMD claims its new chip collection is quicker than Nvidia’s counterparts and represents main features over earlier variations.
That alone is thrilling. However I’m much more intrigued by how AMD intends to compete on this house.
Fairly than mimicking Nvidia’s tightly built-in ecosystem, AMD is leaning into open requirements. It’s providing a extra modular, versatile strategy for firms that need management over their stack.
To that finish, Su previewed AMD’s new “Helios” rack system, a full end-to-end AI platform constructed round this open infrastructure.
She referred to as it: “a recreation changer.”
These racks embody the whole lot a supercomputer wants, together with its brains (CPUs), muscle tissues (GPUs) and quick web connections (NICs), all working collectively.
It’s an answer geared toward each frontier mannequin coaching and large-scale AI inference. And it prompted my Spidey-sense to set off.
As a result of in relation to AI coaching, one firm prefers to play by its personal guidelines.
In fact, I’m speaking about Tesla.
On Could 20, Elon Musk instructed CNBC that Tesla and xAI would proceed shopping for lots of GPUs from Nvidia, but in addition “some from AMD” and probably others.
I don’t suppose it’s loopy to learn extra into that assertion.
You see, Tesla is at the moment constructing out large compute clusters to help its Dojo supercomputer and energy its Optimus humanoid robotic.
The size of this effort is gigantic. And it requires {hardware} that’s quick, reasonably priced and versatile.
Nvidia affords best-in-class efficiency, no query. However it comes bundled in what some engineers name a “black field.” In different phrases, it’s a closed system the place Nvidia controls practically each layer, from the chip to the software program stack to the networking gear.
For a corporation like Tesla — which has a protracted historical past of constructing in-house and optimizing from the bottom up — that sort of vendor lock-in may not be excellent.
That’s why AMD’s open strategy is sensible to me right here.
It will let Tesla customise its AI infrastructure with out being tied to at least one proprietary ecosystem.
It may additionally decrease prices at a time when GPU provide remains to be constrained and costs stay sky-high.
If the MI355X delivers even near Nvidia’s efficiency, Musk could have each purpose to start out shifting to AMD’s merchandise.
That’s very true for Optimus, which Musk mentioned might be “price greater than [Tesla’s] automotive enterprise and price greater than full self-driving.”
Supply: Wikimedia Commons
It’s additionally price noting that Tesla has made a behavior of quietly adopting AMD chips for in-vehicle functions over the previous few years.
So this wouldn’t be the primary time Musk gave Su’s staff a shot.
Right here’s My Take
AMD’s inventory has fallen properly beneath final yr’s highs.
Supply: Yahoo Finance
However that would quickly change.
I don’t consider Tesla will abandon Nvidia in a single day.
However AMD simply made its most convincing pitch but, with a robust product and a method that offers firms like Tesla extra management.
I consider it’s solely a matter of time earlier than we may see Elon announce a significant AI deployment constructed on AMD {hardware}.
And the 800-pound gorilla is perhaps in for a critical battle.
Regards,
Ian KingChief Strategist, Banyan Hill Publishing
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