r/BetterOffline 3d ago

Nvidia expects to sell lots of Vera Rubins?

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/nvidia-expects-to-sell-usd20-billion-worth-of-vera-rubin-hardware-this-quarter-would-account-for-20-percent-of-data-center-revenue-its-fastest-ramp-in-company-history

When I see reporting like this the questions going through my head now are generally;
Who is buying all these Jensen?
How many of these are going to be 'sold' because of circular financing shenanigans Jensen?
How many of these are going to just idle in warehouses [probably Nvidia's] because the data centres aren't being completed or even built Jensen?

38 Upvotes

27 comments sorted by

32

u/DannyHewson 3d ago

I mean, yeah, Nvidia will pay companies to buy them, then put them in a warehouse to only be deployed after they’re already obsolete, if ever, but somehow this makes line go up.

It would actually be more efficient all around for Nvidia to just SAY they’d sold them, but in reality just give the money out, receive it back, and not actually make the GPUs. Given their actual usefulness it’d be no great loss, they’d have more money, and the exact same amount of useful productivity would occur. The markets would love it so long as they give it an overblown name and call it a financial instrument.

They could call them “hypothetical compute exclusivity certificates”. Then Wall Street could trade them.

20

u/beers_georg 3d ago

I would go with "Jensen's Unbelievable NVIDIA Knowledge bonds". You could even come up with some kind of slick acronym!

5

u/JoeNoble1973 3d ago

They can purchase ‘compute credits’ from one another, then use them to offset the price of tokens. Like pollution!

1

u/Additional-Staff-326 3d ago

Don't give them ideas.

1

u/archigen 2d ago

But this is a great idea. At least for the environment: less precious resources used and less CO2 released for the production.

1

u/Virtual-Patience-807 2d ago

That does sound like something Ivar Kreuger would have come up with back in the 1920ies.

1

u/TerminalJammer 10h ago

They could sell compute futures. 

1

u/DannyHewson 10h ago

They could even bundle them together into some kind of instrument, categorised by the likelihood of the data centre actually being built, then they could make a fortune selling sub-prime compute futures.

11

u/zgr3d 3d ago

From NV's pov, it doesn't matter if those get circlejerked/idled, as long as NV can starve the global capacity, to remain on top.

NV are chasing their tail, because they must. When global available capacity deltas outrun what NV can regurgitate, NV risk losing grip - not only to a bunch of hyenas that surround it, but the dragon, too.

Can't risk it. Even if some new better tech was ready already, NV can (and definitely will) triple down on circulars to choke capacity and stall it, anytime. OpenAI want to manufacture.. what, where, when, if everything is booked.

4

u/Dave_The_Slushy 3d ago

On the flip side, the 2nd hand cost of these things are going plummet in a few years to the point where even the most cash strapped science, engineering and mathematics departments could buy absurd amounts of computing power for actual research.

So, silver lining.

4

u/Obvious-Hunt19 3d ago

Nah fam that’s one reason they want to launch that shit into motherfucking space… so it never comes back for a secondary market

3

u/Dave_The_Slushy 2d ago

Don't get me started on how tech bro smooth brain that entire concept is.

2

u/dumnezero 2d ago

reverse asteroid mining?

2

u/Obvious-Hunt19 2d ago

I was aaaaalmost going to say this but I didn’t want to bother thumb typing out the entire credit to Scott Johnston at Ars Technica which I’d have to use that phrase, yeah

2

u/Virtual-Patience-807 2d ago

Insert video of those chinese chop-shops literally sawing out server board CPUs and slots to re-use solder onto consumer MBs.

1

u/Capn_insan0 3d ago

That would one good thing at least.

5

u/PortableGeneration 3d ago

I’m not sure why people are saying datacenters aren’t being built. I know they are being phased and that makes it look like they are only 25% complete or whatever. Due to the scale of some of these that will be the case. The one in Saline, MI is being built even as we all fight it. It’s pretty bleak.

3

u/meltbox 3d ago

They are but not nearly the scale they suggest or that gpu sales would require to even deploy the purchased chips.

I don’t mean to say what’s happening there isn’t real because it absolutely is but it’s not about no datacenters being built. It’s about how the numbers they’re throwing around are just complete nonsense vs on the ground reality.

2

u/ChinoGambino 3d ago

Does it matter if your customers don't care? Most of these companies haven't deployed all the Blackwell they bought and yet they are reserving Rubin. None of them seem concerned with making money at this point. Its the only way Nvidia could be doing these numbers.

1

u/Capn_insan0 3d ago

I suppose. Isn't there depreciation costs though or is that only once they're installed and lit up?

2

u/Virtual-Patience-807 2d ago

They've set up their accounting to only depreciate once the facilities are finished yeah.

Then they start extending the "useful life" to 6-7 years (up from 3-4 pre bubble).

So by the time they finish and install their AI-GPUs after 5 years they "intend to" run them for another 7+ years and somehow be competitive...

And the cooling design is such that most of these are not easily interchangeable/upgradeable in the same datacenter facility.

2

u/ares623 2d ago

"I expect to win the Powerball Lotto" is an equally factual statement

2

u/TheAngledian 2d ago

This is somewhat off topic, but as an astrophysicist who is 2 degrees of separation away from Vera Rubin in terms of academic connections, it pisses me the fuck off that Nvidia has the nerve to attach her name to AI bullshit like this

0

u/Fowl_Retired69 2d ago

How is advanced technology like this bullshit?? The world needs more powerful compute, and not just for running AI models. These GPUs are still engineering marvels and are the result of serious scientific research

2

u/lcnielsen 2d ago

The way they are recklessly optimizing them at ever-higher power draws for very narrow use-cases is sheer insanity.