Jim Keller has shared a string of posts over at X where he has called out NVIDIA's CUDA for being a swamp and also said the same was true for x86.
In the current day and age, NVIDIA is dominating the AI segment not because it has high computing power on its back but because its CUDA platform has been optimized in a way to leverage the performance of the company's AI accelerators. CUDA is seen as NVIDIA's primary catalyst for the firm's massive success in the data center segment. However, industry personalities such as Intel's CEO Pat Gelsinger and Tenstorrent's CEO Jim Keller have criticized Team Green's approach with CUDA, claiming it's a trap for the firm's sustainability in the AI segment.
Jim Keller reached out on the social media platform X to express his views on the ongoing "CUDA dominance," interestingly, he categorized the resource as a swamp and related it to how the x86 architecture was progressing back in the day. Now, how a swamp works is that it restricts an individual in itself when he enters in, and now replicating this situation with CUDA, Jim Keller meant that its limitations could potentially lead to CUDA's downfall. While he didn't specify the reason behind this categorization, we have some "educated" guesses.
If we look at how x86 progressed with time, instead of receiving fundamental changes, the architecture was developed in light of prioritizing backward compatibility. While this might sound beneficial, it led to the creation of layered, intricate architectures in the long run, which made future development quite hectic. The case with NVIDIA CUDA might seem similar as well, and Jim's analysis probably makes sense here since building upon existing foundations sometimes means carrying inefficiencies.
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