Meta creates own chips because of AI. What consequences could this have for us, regular users?
Yesterday I read an article in Reuters that Mark Zuckerberg is investing billions in developing his chips to reduce his dependence on NVIDIA.
Microsoft, OpenAI, and Google want to make them too.
I might see lower costs for the company, its dependency on another supplier, and performance.
How might this be reflected in the end user? (Us?)
Do you have any additional information?
Replies
I find this trend really fascinating! It seems like vertical integration is becoming more common these days, especially with companies like Apple taking the lead with their custom silicon chips, followed by Google and now Meta. I also noticed that Microsoft is making moves with their Cobalt chips.
In my opinion, the main reasons behind this shift are pretty clear: companies want to have more control over their supply chains to streamline operations, reduce costs over time, and stay competitive in this market.
I think this is great news for us as end users because more competition usually means better products at lower prices.
I can’t help but think about NVIDIA, though. They’ll definitely need to stay on their toes and keep innovating to maintain their edge. That said, their software features, like CUDA, give them a strong competitive advantage. So, it might take a while before we really see the impact of software companies designing their own chips.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@ash_groverI personally think that if one of those giant companies defeats NVIDIA, we can see the expansion of the business into other sectors. Let's hope that this company will not abandon its core product.
what this means is that the chip makers are the likeliest winners, if this narrative is more than just words.
Apple have done this already but it makes sense that they have - they sell a lot of hardware.
in any event, this will take years to play out. look at Meta's metaverse - lots of hype, not much traction afaik
minimalist phone: creating folders
@taniabell I think that a lot of things depend on the geopolitical situation. These chips are mainly produced in Taiwan and the country is a little bit of the interest of China.
All of those companies will have to build chips at scale for it to make economical sense. Apple did it once before and it did not make sense to they switched to Intel. But, they switched back once they had the know how, and the scale made economical sense. I don’t think Meta is there yet. Microsoft just prints money so they can play around and test. Google could pull it off, if they tried to focus on becoming the number one android device at scale.
As far as the rest of us…we will continue to use the superior hardware we all have access to – namely Nvidia. And most startups are software focused, and no so much on optimizing granular threads.
That’s just my 2ç.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@yashara Which company do you think will have an upper hand at this in the future?
My money is on Microsoft. Either way they win. They are heavily invested in OpenAI who uses Nvidia, and now building their own chips.
But, I would not rule out Apple – they might just surprise the world like they did with their in-house chip making like now.
Google is just too dispersed in their focus. They do too much, and do not focus on the core things. Just two core things. Search, and YouTube imo.
But, I would say that this is an incredibly amazing environment for startups who see an opening for an ecosystem they can build faster, ship faster, and get more users engaged. Then they can either be acquired, and if they have the appetite for it, usurp a current contender in that “niche” space.
Time will tell.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@yashara We may be surprised what will happen in the future. Like AI, there can be another phenomenon that will change the game and the big companies will chase another trend.
minimalist phone: creating folders
One thing that came to my mind is that it would be nice to diversify your stock portfolio and not have everything in NVIDIA. 😀
@busmark_w_nika Apart from NVIDIA, I also hold a large amount of PLTR stocks. Although their stock prices are declining, in this way, I have diversified my investments in both software and hardware.
nvidia stock going down might be a consequence.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@alxrda Now, I am so happy that I didn't buy. :D
It seems the real winners are the "picks and shovels" players. Everyone depends on TSMC to make chips, whether that's Nvidia GPUs or Magic 7's ASICs, and TSMC’s key suppliers like Lam Research and ASML benefit as well.
Shortly, the cost of AI inference will drop rapidly. As end users, we’re likely to see the widespread arrival of AI agents given cheap computing power.
minimalist phone: creating folders
What it means for us? Will we be paying less for subscriptions for ChatGPT?
@busmark_w_nika Most likely I think, with wide adoption of cheaper ASICs, Chatgpt should be able to lower price. Competition is another factor, it has to lower price continuously or risk losing market share to open sourced models