ELI5, why are GPUs not a commodity piece of hardware that any sophisticated chip manufacturer can't also produce?
This is one of the first time in the tech industry where the value was fully reaped by the hardware itself and not by the differentiated software that ran on top of it
they are very small, very advanced, and production yields are poor. The equipment is also stupidly expensive and takes reams of smart people just to run.
Silicon is currently the most advanced tech humans have ever made and those GPUs are on the cutting edge of that
Amazon has a some AI chips they created themselves. Same with Tesla. They are both behind Nvidia and probably won’t catch up BUT raw performance isn’t always the most important part. Often it’s the cost per compute unit and companies are quickly getting close to Nvidia.
This is one of the first time in the tech industry where the value was fully reaped by the hardware itself and not by the differentiated software that ran on top of it