Ask HN: Why hasn’t AMD made a viable CUDA alternative?

I want to argue that graphics cards are really 3 markets: integrated, gaming (dedicated), and compute. Not only do these have different hardware (fixed function, ray tracing cores, etc.) but also different programming and (importantly) distribution models. NVIDIA went from 2 to 3. Intel went from 1 to 2, and bought 3 (trying to merge). AMD started with 2 and went to 1 (around Llano) and attempted the same thing as NVIDIA via GCN (please correct me if I'm wrong).

My understanding is that the reason is that the real market for 3 (GPUs for compute) didn't show up until very late, so AMD's GCN bet didn't pay off. Even in 2021, NVIDIA's revenue from gaming was above data center revenue (a segment they basically had no competition in, and 100% of their revenue was from CUDA). AMD meanwhile won the battle for Playstation and Xbox consoles, and was executing a turnaround in data centers with EPYC and CPUs (with Zen). So my guess as to why they might have underinvested is basically: for much of the 2010s they were just trying to survive, so they focused on battles they could win that would bring them revenue.

This high level prioritization would explain a lot of "misexecution", e.g. if they underhired for ROCm, or prioritized APU SDK experience over data center, their testing philosophy ("does this game work ok? great").

The market segmentation you describe makes a lot of sense to me. But I don't think the situation is a matter of under-investment and is instead just fundamental market economics.

Nvidia can afford to develop a comprehensive software platform for the compute market segment because it has a comprehensive share of that segment. AMD cannot afford it because it does not have the market share.

Or to put it another way, I assume that AMD's efforts are motivated rational economic behavior and it has not been economically rational to compete heavily with Nvidia in the compute segment.

AMD was able to buy ATI because ATI could not compete with Nvidia. So AMD's graphics business started out trailing Nvidia. AMD has had a viable graphics strategy without trying to beat Nvidia...which makes sense since the traditional opponent is Intel and the ATI purchase has allowed AMD to compete with them pretty well.

Finally, most of the call for AMD to develop a CUDA alternative is based on a desire for cheaper compute. That's not a good business venture to invest in against a dominate player because price sensitive customers are poor customers.

> Finally, most of the call for AMD to develop a CUDA alternative is based on a desire for cheaper compute. That's not a good business venture to invest in against a dominate player because price sensitive customers are poor customers.

Nvidia’s gross margins are 80% on compute GPUs, that is excessive and likely higher than what cocaine and heroin dealers have for gross margins. Real competition would be a good thing for everyone except Nvidia.