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Nvidia discusses $2k-per-GPU annual fee for software(tomshardware.com)

41 points by gscott 3 days ago | 23 comments

Everyone is making better software than NVIDIA today with AI, to the extent they are un-nerfing hardware and making stuff run 2x faster. Why would anyone in their sane mind pay NVIDIA anything when they can vibe engineer a faster library?

[–] pacman1337 3 days ago

because NVIDIA can force them

[–] Bluestein 3 days ago

... they can force them and they will - I think it is telling that they are beginning to consider extracting software rents, which could indicate they are beginning to prepare for some lack of sustainability in hardware sales - though right now they cannot make them fast enough, 'em chips.-

[–] vkaku 3 days ago

They've got no hardware moat and they somehow think people will pay more money for slow software?! Hmmm ....

[–] saintfire 3 days ago

Not that I necessarily agree with their rationale, but you're framing it differently.

> Lack of sustainability in hardware sales

Doesn't necessarily imply competitors will be eating market share, it can imply the market will shrink. e.g. data center commitments and AI dries up. Or, it can imply hardware development will slow or become "good enough" and slow sales of latest and greatest.

[–] Bluestein 3 days ago

Totally agree, and was more my thinking: Commitment weakening (we are seeing signs of that overall, I believe) and to some degree hardware being sufficient (baring some qualitative paradigm shift ...).-

[–] jwilcoxson 3 days ago

In the industrial automation world, you pay for the hardware (PLC), and then separately have to pay for the software to program it (made by the same company). Now if you want support for the software or hardware, that’s another cost.

At every interaction point, someone has their hand out wanting payment.

[–] TazeTSchnitzel 3 days ago

What software is this? A value-add nobody uses, or a core CUDA component everyone is stuck with?

[–] Kevin_Flynn 3 days ago

At what point do market forces take over, and give Nvidia the collective middle finger ?

Couldn't customer #1 just have AI reverse engineer, clean room recode, and open source publish it, because its software ?

It's all in how your attorneys define "clean room" now isn't it ?

[–] georgemcbay 3 days ago

> Couldn't customer #1 just have AI reverse engineer, clean room recode, and open source publish it, because its software ?

Probably.

But... Nvidia is currently close enough to a monopoly in this space, and our antitrust enforcement is so weak/nearly-non-existent, that I suspect that anyone who either did this or used the software that resulted from it would be blacklisted by Nvidia and never get another Nvidia GPU.

So (unfortunately) chances are very good anyone in a position to do this will just shut up and pay the rent.

[–] Kevin_Flynn 3 days ago

Perhaps we should all start pledging allegience to AMD.

They seem to be the only company punching Nvidia and Intel in the nose when they can.

[–] bigbadfeline 2 days ago

Intel is good, better than AMD in the open source area.

[–] j45 3 days ago

Folks over time do build their own, or alternative tools.

In the model space the open source efforts have been not disappointing at all.

[–] nubinetwork 3 days ago

> At what point do market forces take over, and give Nvidia the collective middle finger ?

I haven't bought an Nvidia gpu since the 980. /shrug

[–] NBJack 3 days ago

Why does this sound so much like an Oracle move?

https://www.cfodive.com/news/nvidia-hands-new-cao-129m-rsus-...

Oh. Former senior VP at Oracle hired...May this year? Color me surprised.

[–] cyanydeez 3 days ago

Someone put up a ishuggingfacedead.com death watch and just post articles like this until it's obvious.

[–] threecheese 3 days ago

One thing I've noticed is a lot more HF assets require personal information collection to download. Not sure if that's new corporate compliance or an attempt to manage bandwidth (or a marketing channel).

[–] j45 3 days ago

First it was licensing per cpu, now gpu?

[–] mrlonglong 3 days ago

Time for a Linus Torvalds middle finger.

[–] Danox 3 days ago

Apple dropped them for a reason...

[–] throwaway919233 3 days ago

Surprised its not based on wattage

[–] MisterMunchkin 3 days ago

Lmao! Sorry AI companies, even if you somehow survive to profitability, daddy Nvidia will just decide you have to pay rent in perpetuity. 99% margin on chips isn’t enough.

[–] verdverm 3 days ago

buy the hardware and pay rent, even better /s