I really wonder how the future tariffs are going to shape the AI industry. Are we going to see huge AI clusters being hosted overseas? Will it eat into Nvidia's bottom line or will consumers just eat the price increase?
“Apple annual research and development expenses for 2024 were $31.37B, a 4.86% increase from 2023. Apple annual research and development expenses for 2023 were $29.915B, a 13.96% increase from 2022. Apple annual research and development expenses for 2022 were $26.251B, a 19.79% increase from 2021”
> They seem to have lost faith in their own ability to innovate.
As they should. I mean they can, but they have to change course. All of Silicon Valley has tried to disenfranchise the power users. With excuses that most people don't want those things or how users are too dumb. But the power users are what drives the innovation. Sure, they're a small percentage, but they are the ones who come into your company and hit the ground running. They are the ones that will get to know the systems in and out. They do these things because they specifically want to accomplish things that the devices/software doesn't already do. In other words: innovation. But everyone (Google and Microsoft included) are building walled gardens. Pushing out access. So what do you do? You get the business team to innovate. So what do they come up with? "idk, make it smaller?" "these people are going wild over that gpt thing, let's integrate that!"
But here's the truth: there is no average user. Or rather, the average user is not representative of the distribution of users. If you build for average, you build for no one. It is hard to invent things, so use the power of scale. It is literally at your fingertips if you want it. Take advantage of the fact that you have a cash cow. That means you can take risks, that you can slow down and make sure you are doing things right. You're not going to die tomorrow if you don't ship, you can take on hard problems and *really* innovate. But you have to take off the chains. Yes, powerful tools are scary, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't use them.
> the average user is not representative of the distribution of users.
What does this mean? Just thinking about iPhones: As of September 2024, there are an estimated 1.382 billion active iPhone users worldwide, which is a 3.6% increase from the previous year. In the United States, there are over 150 million active iPhone users.
In addition to the GPUs (which they invented) that Nvidia designs and manufactures for gaming, cryptocurrency mining, and other professional applications, the company also creates chip systems for use in vehicles, robotics, and other tools.
Why is market cap the most important metric? It does not exist in a void. Market cap + P/E or forward P/E, P/B, P/S, etc. are all metrics of high import.
Market cap is one piece of a complicated picture. On its own, you don't know too much.
if there are 100 shares in a company, but 2 people own them. person1 has 99 shares. person2 has 1 share. person1 sells their share for $100 to person3.
Does that mean the market cap is worth $10k? yes. is that meaningful if there are no other buyers at $100? no.
Weirdly enough for my next "AI hardware" purchase, I'm waiting for the release of the M4 Ultra to max out on VRAM since Nvidia's chips are highly overpriced and using GPU RAM to price gouge the market.
Since M4 Max allows 128GB RAM I'm expecting M4 Ultra to max out at 256GB RAM. Curious what x86's best value get consumer hardware with 256GB GPU RAM. I've noticed tinygrad offers a 192 GPU RAM setup for $40K USD [1], anything cheaper?
Yes.
“Apple annual research and development expenses for 2024 were $31.37B, a 4.86% increase from 2023. Apple annual research and development expenses for 2023 were $29.915B, a 13.96% increase from 2022. Apple annual research and development expenses for 2022 were $26.251B, a 19.79% increase from 2021”
— https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/researc...
Chips, for one, don’t research themselves: https://www.apple.com/uk/newsroom/2023/03/apple-accelerates-...
Ex: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41491121
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41948739
Tested by community: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41799324
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42019694
VR was a 10 year or so project but agreed no product-market fit yet.
But here's the truth: there is no average user. Or rather, the average user is not representative of the distribution of users. If you build for average, you build for no one. It is hard to invent things, so use the power of scale. It is literally at your fingertips if you want it. Take advantage of the fact that you have a cash cow. That means you can take risks, that you can slow down and make sure you are doing things right. You're not going to die tomorrow if you don't ship, you can take on hard problems and *really* innovate. But you have to take off the chains. Yes, powerful tools are scary, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't use them.
What does this mean? Just thinking about iPhones: As of September 2024, there are an estimated 1.382 billion active iPhone users worldwide, which is a 3.6% increase from the previous year. In the United States, there are over 150 million active iPhone users.
In addition to the GPUs (which they invented) that Nvidia designs and manufactures for gaming, cryptocurrency mining, and other professional applications, the company also creates chip systems for use in vehicles, robotics, and other tools.
The only reason they are this big right now is because they are selling H100s, mostly to other big tech companies.
The term "GPU" was coined by Sony in reference to the 32-bit Sony GPU (designed by Toshiba) in the PlayStation video game console, released in 1994.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit
Market cap is one piece of a complicated picture. On its own, you don't know too much.
Profit is the number that really matters.
Does that mean the market cap is worth $10k? yes. is that meaningful if there are no other buyers at $100? no.
Since M4 Max allows 128GB RAM I'm expecting M4 Ultra to max out at 256GB RAM. Curious what x86's best value get consumer hardware with 256GB GPU RAM. I've noticed tinygrad offers a 192 GPU RAM setup for $40K USD [1], anything cheaper?
[1] https://tinygrad.org/#tinygrad