The AI industry spent 17x more on Nvidia chips than it brought in in revenue

Re:The AI industry spent 17x more on Nvidia chips than it br... by jzb on Sunday March 31, 2024 @09:12AM (#39883955)

Or 1848: “Prospectors spent 17x more on picks and shovels than they recouped by finding gold.”

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Re:The AI industry spent 17x more on Nvidia chips than it br... by RetroTechie on Sunday March 31, 2024 @10:13AM (#39884466)

Iirc some got lucky & struck gold. Most didn't, and moved on empty handed.

But businesses that did prosper long-term, were the ones that catered to the gold seekers: sellers of equipment, food stores, bars & room-for-rent type facilities.

So you could say that (on average) the 'meta-suppliers' did better long-term than the gold seekers themselves.

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Re:The AI industry spent 17x more on Nvidia chips than it br... by lesuorac on Sunday March 31, 2024 @11:51AM (#39885328)

Whats the definition of long-term?

A lot of mining towns became ghost towns (i.e. Cerro Gordo [1]) and in those situations even the merchants are out of business. It's not like we stopped mining silver though; the prospectors moved on to other areas.

Like if TPUs replace GPUs then Nvidia is looking at a decrease in growth. The horse shoe sellers go out of business just as fast as the horse shoe maker does.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Gordo_Mines

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