[HN Gopher] OpenAI builds first chip with Broadcom and TSMC, sca...
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OpenAI builds first chip with Broadcom and TSMC, scales back
foundry ambition
Author : marban
Score : 120 points
Date : 2024-10-29 17:19 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| whaleofatw2022 wrote:
| I feel like them working with broadcom is another warning sign
| mgh2 wrote:
| Why? Care for references instead of opinions?
| observationist wrote:
| Sam seems to be finding as many devils to bargain with as he
| can; Broadcom is a particularly devilish company.
| crowcroft wrote:
| Makes sense to work with them if they're trying to design
| some kind of ASIC that would work for training or inference
| though?
| worldsayshi wrote:
| What have they done?
| nick__m wrote:
| They buy companies like VMWare and Computer-Associate,
| gut them and jack the price until they only have captive
| consumers from the fortune 500.
| alephnerd wrote:
| CA and VMWare were already dead on acquisition.
|
| Splunk+Datadog and AWS+Nutanix+Cohesity respectively ate
| much of CA and VMWare's marketshare.
| ZeroCool2u wrote:
| I'm not saying that I necessarily agree, but the general
| consensus on HN seems to be that Broadcom is now less of a
| tech company and more of a holding company that raids others,
| for example VMWare, and extracts all value to the detriment
| of customers and the acquired company.
|
| I don't think that's completely wrong, but it's a big company
| and I'm sure there are some better areas of the company than
| others.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > general consensus on HN
|
| General consensus on HN is generally wrong.
| OrigamiPastrami wrote:
| Is there somewhere the general consensus is generally
| right?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| "Journalists" seem to trust twitter an awful lot...
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Broadcom is on track to spend 10bn on RND this year.
| Basically a pure-play patent troll!
| sroussey wrote:
| Don't they make the WiFi chips in iPhones?
| hatthew wrote:
| this makes sense since the general consensus on HN is
| that any general consensus on HN is right so if the
| general consensus on HN that any general consensus on HN
| is right is wrong then any general consensus on HN could
| be wrong
| onion2k wrote:
| _General consensus on HN is generally wrong._
|
| I think everyone here would agree with that.
|
| ;)
| wmf wrote:
| Broadcom has some really good chips and their semi-custom
| chip business is pretty successful. HN doesn't understand
| hardware so they don't know this.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > HN doesn't understand hardware so they don't know this.
|
| HN doesn't understand business in general. I miss the
| good old days on HN when you actually saw execs or actual
| SMEs shooting the shit.
|
| Now it's just Reddit and LessWrong refugees based on
| account creation date.
| razodactyl wrote:
| I think the internet changed all over.
|
| It's a sign that we're moving on to greener pastures.
|
| Sucks for the new generation that think everything needs
| an app to work.
|
| The internet was better at feeling less corporate a
| decade ago.
| 0x0203 wrote:
| Additionally, having worked with some of their network
| devices at the driver level, they seem to be kludge piled
| on top of hack poured over a soup of workarounds for
| hardware bugs. Maybe they've gotten better recently, but
| just looking at their drivers, it didn't paint a great
| picture.
| sroussey wrote:
| Oh god, I'd paint all hardware companies that way!
|
| Having been on both sides, I'm continually shocked that
| stuff even works.
| blibble wrote:
| it's no longer Broadcom
|
| Avago Technologies (owned by corporate raiders) bought
| Broadcom, then took its name for itself
|
| its ticker is still AVAG
| nsteel wrote:
| I think it's completely wrong in the context of its role as
| an ASIC partner. There's a very short list of companies
| with all the IP needed for these cutting-edge ASICs and
| Broadcom/Avago might be the best of them. And to be clear,
| they've developed that IP themselves, just as they've
| always done. Those that think they're just a "holding
| company" haven't actually worked with them.
| plegresl wrote:
| Why? Google also partners with Broadcom for TPU.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Because Google's TPU' are so bad?
| https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/22/google_broadcom_tpus/
| mhandley wrote:
| Broadcom also builds xPUs for Google, Meta and Bytedance. Maybe
| these companies know a thing or two.
| high_na_euv wrote:
| So TSMC will eventually work with podcasting bro
|
| >TSMC execs allegedly dismissed Sam Altman as 'podcasting bro' --
| OpenAI CEO made absurd requests for 36 fabs for $7 trillion
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| I'm sure they'll work with anyone willing to pay
| jsheard wrote:
| > OpenAI considered building everything in-house and raising
| capital for an expensive plan to build a network of factories
| known as "foundries" for chip manufacturing. The company has
| dropped the ambitious foundry plans for now due to the costs and
| time needed to build a network
|
| That framing massively undersells how insane Sams ambitions were
| there, he was floating the idea of somehow raising _seven
| trillion dollars_ to build _thirty six fabs_ dedicated to making
| AI silicon. The TSMC execs reported more or less laughed in his
| face when he brought it up it them.
| kkielhofner wrote:
| For reference seven trillion dollars is 25% of US GDP.
|
| Yeah, that's um, wild.
| xyst wrote:
| It's just 1/5th of the current USA national debt of $35T, bro.
| Just have fed run those money printers 365/24/7.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| As anyone with 2 brain cells should have.
|
| You don't just acquire $7T.
|
| The ENTIRE US domestic Net Investment isn't even $1T:
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W790RC1Q027SBEA
|
| Gross Fixed Capital Formation (Net Investment + Deprecation)
| isn't much more:
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NFIRSAXDCUSQ
|
| Google, Apple, and Microsoft together don't even spend $100B on
| CapEx per year. And they're worth almost $10T put together.
|
| Asking for $7T when you're a $100B company is so ridiculous
| it's beyond belief.
| hu3 wrote:
| He would have to have AGI proof to ask for this unprecedented
| kind of investing money.
|
| And even them it would have to be split during a decade or
| two. And even then.
|
| What's the military budget of USA?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| It doesn't matter what the military budget is.
|
| Most of it is spent on personnel and operation.
|
| You'd want to know only what the procurement is - which is
| ~$146B: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_th
| e_United_...
|
| And most of that is part of Gross Fixed Capital Formation
| already...
| colechristensen wrote:
| >What's the military budget of USA?
|
| Somewhere between $900B and $1T this year
| wheels wrote:
| And if it was a 30% stake in OpenAI for that $7 trillion
| (kind of a standard VC round percentage) that would put
| OpenAI's valuation at about the same of all of the 7000-ish
| NASDAQ companies (including almost all public tech companies)
| combined.
| lumost wrote:
| There was probably a point of maximum hype ~12 months ago,
| or right after the launch of GPT-4 where the belief of
| imminent singularity was running high.
| sroussey wrote:
| Does anyone have a source for this "$7T" number?
|
| I read it on the internet myself with "sources saying" but I
| think it's BS.
| ano-ther wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/25/business/openai-plan-
| elec...
|
| https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tsmc-execs-
| allege...
| croes wrote:
| Sound like the beginning of Universal Paperclips
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Paperclips
| shreezus wrote:
| $7T is entirely reasonable if it successfully enables ASI
| (assuming in fact, scale is all you need).
|
| It may sound ambitious delusional, but let's remember that
| there are folks in the industry that are entirely serious about
| summoning the Machine God (including Altman himself).
| snovv_crash wrote:
| $7T can buy a hell of a lot of human intelligence. At that
| price I'm not sure AS/GI is cost competitive.
| bboygravity wrote:
| You think summoning machine god would not be cost
| competitive? God as in smarter than all of humanity
| combined times infinity (or at least a very large number).
|
| Earning back the 7T with god/satan on your side could be
| trivial and at the same time the least of your worries for
| other reasons (maybe god doesn't like you and/or doesn't
| care about you).
| nobunaga wrote:
| Some people (like yourselves) are so delusional that you
| are capable of considering wasting 7T$ on something that
| is a glorified autocomplete technology. We kind of a need
| a reset in the tech industry to get rid of mindsets like
| yours. AGI is still so far away and when the AI bubble
| eventually bursts, you will probably still try to
| convince yourself it still only needs 7T$. The state of
| people in the tech industry is sad.
| meiraleal wrote:
| > Some people (like yourselves) are so delusional that
| you are capable of considering wasting 7T$ on something
| that is a glorified autocomplete technology.
|
| You know that to many, you are the delusional one if you
| think that some fictional number in a screen is more
| important than this glorified autocomplete technology
| that have the potential to revolutionize society as much
| as agriculture, electricity and the internet.
| cal5k wrote:
| It's kind of admirable, though. If you start asking for $7T,
| only asking for $1T becomes quite reasonable ;-)
| lyu07282 wrote:
| Only if they stop laughing long enough for them to hear your
| second offer
| latexr wrote:
| That only works if the initial request isn't so bonkers that
| no one can trust subsequent ones.
| a13n wrote:
| It could have been strategy instead of insanity. By starting
| conversations at $7T you anchor high and potentially drive a
| greater outcome than starting an order of magnitude lower.
| jsheard wrote:
| Usually when doing anchoring you want to end up at a result
| less than what you originally asked for but crucially more
| than zero, and OpenAI immediately folded on building any fabs
| whatsoever, so I don't think it worked.
| adventured wrote:
| When you do something that stupid - starting at $7 trillion -
| you end the conversation before it really begins because you
| lose all credibility with the people that matter (eg TSMC and
| other investors).
|
| If he had said $250 billion and six fabs, it would have been
| a lot to ask but people wouldn't think he was ignorant or
| irrational for saying it. Big tech for example has that kind
| of money to throw around spread out across a decade if the
| investment is a truly great opportunity.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Asking for $7T is - seriously - only slightly more absurd
| than asking for infinity dollars.
| lyu07282 wrote:
| I guess he thinks his glorified markov chain will lead to
| ASI if scaled up sufficiently. Even if we get ASI, the
| likelihood that anybody will ever make any money from it
| is so delusional. This isn't going to be your average
| brainwashed peasant, crushing these capitalist pigs is
| probably the first thing it's gonna do.
| GaggiX wrote:
| This comment honestly feels delusional.
| rurp wrote:
| That strategy only works if the anchor is in the realm of
| reality. If I'm selling a 20 year old Toyota Corolla and
| initially ask for $900,000 that's not going to help me get a
| higher price.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Approaching Adam Neumann-levels of grandiosity.
|
| Could it be possible that OpenAI's new autocomplete will be as
| transformative to the global economy as WeWork's short term
| office rentals?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| And that's 7T just to build the fabs, then they'd need tons
| more money to build the hardware to put the chips in,
| datacenters, staff, software, etc.
| latchkey wrote:
| "while adding AMD (AMD.O), opens new tab chips alongside Nvidia
| (NVDA.O), opens new tab chips to meet its surging infrastructure
| demands"
|
| Jensen has been saying that demand is "insane" and we're hearing
| rumors of low yields. This equates to supply issues in the coming
| months/years. No fortune 500 puts all their eggs into one basket.
| Diversifying away from a single source for all of AI hardware and
| software, is a smart thing to do.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > Diversifying away from a single source for all of AI hardware
| and software, is a smart thing to do.
|
| I wonder how this squares with the exclusivity contract with
| Microsoft. Even the OpenAI/Oracle deal requires Oracle to run
| Azure stack on their datacenter so MSFT can mediate the
| relationship. The AMD chips mentioned are also purchased by
| MSFT.
|
| I wonder if this really means that OpenAI is accepting the
| risk/capital expense while providing a variety of hardware to
| Microsoft, or if there are other terms at play.
| latchkey wrote:
| It is just more of this...
|
| https://www.amd.com/en/newsroom/press-
| releases/2024-5-21-amd...
| bloodyplonker22 wrote:
| That is exactly what the execs at my company are telling us
| when asked about not using Nvidia -- diversifying away. It's
| funny though because we have no Nvidia for training at all. We
| use Trainium because we could not get our hands on Nvidia.
| qubitly wrote:
| Spending $7 trillion on in-house fabs sounded both ambitious and
| crazy. Reality finally kicked in. If they're done dreaming big,
| let's hope they keep the quality
| fuddle wrote:
| How long would take them to get a new chip into production and
| then used for training/inference?
| wmf wrote:
| The first generation chip won't be good enough to use in
| production so then you have the second generation... maybe 3-4
| years.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| twoish years, if you're good. Then the software to make it work
| properly. its not a quick thing to do.
|
| You can throw more money at it to make it go faster, but it
| also might fuck it up and take longer.
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