←back to thread

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

183 points spacebanana7 | 1 comments | 01 Apr 25 14:37 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

I appreciate developing ROCm into something competitive with CUDA would require a lot of work, both internally within AMD and with external contributions to the relevant open source libraries.

However the amount of resources at stake is incredible. The delta between NVIDIA's value and AMD's is bigger than the annual GDP of Spain. Even if they needed to hire a few thousand engineers at a few million in comp each, it'd still be a good investment.

Show context
johnnyjeans ◴[01 Apr 25 14:53 UTC] No.43547510[source]▶
> The delta between NVIDIA's value and AMD's is bigger than the annual GDP of Spain.

Nvidia is massively overvalued right now. AI has rocketed them into absolute absurdity, and it's not sustainable. Put aside the actual technology for a second and realize that public image of AI is at rock bottom. Every single time a company puts out AI-generated materials, they receive immense public backlash. That's not going away any time soon and it's only likely to get worse.

Speaking as someone that's not even remotely anti-AI, I wouldn't touch the shit with a 10 foot pole because of how bad the public image is. The moment that capital realizes this, that bubble is going to pop and it's going to pop hard.

replies(5): >>43547559 #>>43547590 #>>43547630 #>>43547711 #>>43548927 #
the__alchemist ◴[01 Apr 25 14:57 UTC] No.43547559[source]▶
You state this very confidently. Are you shorting Nvidia stock? If not, why not?
replies(5): >>43547619 #>>43547659 #>>43547716 #>>43547803 #>>43547847 #
bee_rider ◴[01 Apr 25 15:09 UTC] No.43547716[source]▶
I see this form of argument sometimes here but I really don’t get it.

Lots of people don’t play the stock market or just invest in funds. It seems like just a way of challenging somebody that looks vaguely clever, or calls them out in a “put your money where your mouth is” sense, but actually presents no argument.

Anyway, if you want to short Nvidia you have to know when their bubble is going to pop to get much benefit out of it, right? The market can remain stupid for longer than you can remain solvent or whatever.

replies(3): >>43547942 #>>43553158 #>>43565915 #
the__alchemist ◴[01 Apr 25 15:26 UTC] No.43547942[source]▶
Spot on on the timing being important. I don't think you need to fine-tune it that much; short and hold until the pop happens. If you hold off for a the pop could happen at an indefinite time; maybe very far from now, then I think that invalidates the individual prediction.

One frustrating aspect of investing is that confident information is tough to come by. It's my take that if you have any (I personally rarely do), you should act on it. So, when someone claims confidently (e.g. with adjectives that imply confidence) that something's going to happen, then that's better than the default.

I don't have the insight the claimer does; my thought is: "I am jealous. I with I could be that confident about a stock's trajectory. I would act on it."

replies(3): >>43548153 #>>43548338 #>>43565113 #
1. pointyfence ◴[03 Apr 25 05:28 UTC] No.43565113[source]▶
What you're describing is what Nassim Taleb calls "tawkers." People like economists, journalists, pundits, etc. who talk big but don't have any skin in the game for being wrong or irrelevant (time is a great example). Since there is no feedback loop to punish bad or irrelevant takes, they can continue tawking for a long time.

When I have similarly strong opinions, I do act on it because I enjoy seeing how right or wrong I was. Markets are a harsh, expensive teacher. You either learn a trick or two about uncertainty, overconfidence, humility, etc, or you run out of money.

I think you're better at it than you're letting on even if you decided to not play. You already understand the properties of the game.