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Comment by Aeroi

5 hours ago

Apple owns the hardware, they own the ecosystem, and as mathematics and compression prevail, smaller param models will live on device via purpose built chips. The lack of action will in the end be apples saving grace.

Even if they don't go that route, the data from icloud, cash on hand, and partnerships with sota labs, still position them as a frontier competitor that just hasn't launched yet.

Anyway you shake it strategically, Apple still owns the ecosystem end-to-end.

Huh, if you don't own the models then you don't own the ecosystem end to end though?

> the data from icloud, cash on hand, and partnerships with sota labs, still position them as a frontier competitor that just hasn't launched yet.

Apple mass-produces raster GPUs and bakes them into an expensive ARM SOC. They are not a drop-in replacement for CUDA or any of the expensive GPGPU hardware. Apple Silicon runs compute shaders just like the GPUs from 2012.

You could call them a "frontier competitor that just hasn't launched yet" but we don't even say that about AMD or Intel despite supporting Linux and shipping GPGPU architectures already. Apple's position in the greater AI/GPGPU industry is widely accepted to be forfeit. Even Google's AI hardware strategy is closer to the frontier than Apple's.