NVIDIA discussion [2024]

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Oh as far as i've been seeing discussed online , there seem to be nothing at all especially challenging with SMRs.

Their main issue is about bringing the costs down - SMRs still need to comply to all of the ( too exagerated, btw ) safety regulations . So in most practical cases SMRs cost more per MW the the equivalent big reactors.
I guess the few deployments we'll get will happen due to the SMRs getting the adequate amount of subsidies and being able to fit the requirements of a given contract at the right time. My country is going to install on such reactor in a not so distant future
Right, but how can we actually say any of this without a real success story? We have no idea if it’s easy or hard as it’s only been considered on paper.
 
How can we not? It's basically the same old tech in state of the art reactors, in a smaller "form factor".

Some engineering challenges with that but all in all nothing too dificult nor nothing particularly exciting
 
How can we not? It's basically the same old tech in state of the art reactors, in a smaller "form factor".

Some engineering challenges with that but all in all nothing too dificult nor nothing particularly exciting
The same reactors that we have been essentially unable to build in volume since the 60s?

The problem here is building a nuclear reactor is very difficult and we’re pretending it’s not lol. If it were easy we wouldn’t really be bothering with these solar panels.
 
The same reactors that we have been essentially unable to build in volume since the 60s?

The problem here is building a nuclear reactor is very difficult and we’re pretending it’s not lol. If it were easy we wouldn’t really be bothering with these solar panels.
You are shifting your position. You were first claiming they are new and unproven hence they would need a "first" success story. Now they are the same reactors as in the 60s (which i agree to , btw) ? So which is it?

Anyway, the fact that we were able to build reactors in the 60s kinda proves it's possible with 60s tech. With today's tech (and some incremental improvements in the reactor design), you're saying it's harder? How?

There can be other reasons why something that is technically possible and useful is not "popular". But you seem to asume that because it's not popular, it must be difficult, which is a fallacy.
 
You are shifting your position. You were first claiming they are new and unproven hence they would need a "first" success story. Now they are the same reactors as in the 60s (which i agree to , btw) ? So which is it?

Anyway, the fact that we were able to build reactors in the 60s kinda proves it's possible with 60s tech. With today's tech (and some incremental improvements in the reactor design), you're saying it's harder? How?

There can be other reasons why something that is technically possible and useful is not "popular". But you seem to asume that because it's not popular, it must be difficult, which is a fallacy.
There is no shifting. It’s both completely unproven and if it’s similar at all to the processes needed for traditional reactors then good luck because America basically forgot how to build those without bankrupting the company building it.

If fission reactors were so easy a company could just plop one on their property to power a load, why haven’t we been able to build these in the past 100 years in any significant number, despite rising power requirements?
 
I've adressed what you said (before and now), to me you arre not approaching a point or anything concrete despite my prompts and appeal to discuss logicaly.
Anyway, this is wildly off topic so, whatever
 
I've adressed what you said (before and now), to me you arre not approaching a point or anything concrete despite my prompts and appeal to discuss logicaly.
Anyway, this is wildly off topic so, whatever
I’ve made multiple concrete points you just aren’t addressing them lol. Nuclear reactors are some of the most difficult projects you can attempt in America, we have more private sector rocket launches to space than we do commercial nuclear reactor projects now. So asserting this is just an easy thing people can do for datacenters is naive, it’s not easy and it’s literally never been done before so as far as we know it might not even be feasible, financially or otherwise.

You asked how it would be harder. I don’t know exactly, this isn’t my field of expertise and you’d have to ask someone who works in reactor construction. The answer is probably regulations and cost, almost every company that attempts a modern nuclear reactor construction in the US goes bankrupt from the project despite govt subsidies. The general track record shows that it was easier to do this back in the day because construction was cheaper and had less regulatory roadblocks.

I think it’s plenty on topic if we’re discussing datacenters on this scale that basically require on prem generation.
 
This power discussion might warrant its own thread, but I think it’s important to point out that the technical aspects of nuclear reactors are not the problem per se. There are two major economic issues though.

First, building and operating nuclear plants has become extremely expensive due to a combination of factors, including new safety regs and post-9/11 security requirements. New licensees must account for security in their structural designs, and personnel requirements are more robust. The second related issue is that even existing nuclear power has become much less competitive in the US as domestic fossil fuel production has increased. I live in an area of the US where a substantial portion of power is nuclear, but without subsidies it would be completely uncompetitive with natural gas.

None of this means we can’t do nuclear power anymore, just that the market hasn’t been good for new plants. I think if people are talking about using gigawatts of power on AI, we can agree that supplying it with fossil fuels is a preposterous use of the planet’s carbon budget. I can’t predict what will happen, but looking at these projected numbers the new power will have to come from somewhere.
 
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Where on earth did Twitter get the money to buy all these GPU's anyways? Is Elon just bankrolling it personally, or did they find some more stupid investors to put up some money for it?
 
Really can’t comment on the reliability of this rumour, but nvidia entering the consumer cpu market when Qualcomm’s exclusivity period in windows runs out would shake things up. I honestly don’t know the details of Qualcomm’s arrangement with Microsoft so I’m just going by the article.


This isn't new, was discussed a few pages back. Quoting some of the posts for reference.


The Weibo post that Wccftech cites as their source says (according to two different machine translations) that the SoC is entering mass production during H2 2025. So not H2 2025 "unveil" or "release" as Wccftech words it.

If the Weibo post is 100% on the money, actual product launch could also be early 2026.

Also if it would be in "tape-out phase" now it would be horribly outdated by then

Taiwanese financial newspaper has the AI chip taping out third quarter(2024) and mass production 1st quarter next year.
Sounds more logical but at this point just rumors.

That would fit the supposed Qualcomm exclusivity in Win11 space ending mid 2025 better

So would it be too early for a reveal, or tease, perhaps, at Jensen's CES Keynote, I wonder....

Not necessarily, that's just how long the bring up process seems to take these days. For example Intel has recently taped out Panther Lake, which is due to launch in H2'25 (Likely Q4'25) which seems a similar time frame. They took even longer with Meteor Lake (~18 months IIRC). AMD seemingly takes a bit less, Zen 5 taped out sometime in 2023.

I don't know what Jensen will say at the CES keynote, but the MK SoC schedule is on target for OEMS like Asus, Lenovo, Dell and HP to announce their laptops at Computex
 
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